Episode #199 How Dogs Learn Through Patterns and Repetition

As we gear up for our landmark 200th episode, let's celebrate the journey of learning and love that we’ve shared. This week, I share how observing and analyzing behavior patterns can foster a better understanding between you and your dog. You'll learn to create predictable sequences that your dog can rely on, thus enhancing their learning experience. With a special surprise brewing for next week, now is the perfect time to tune in and enrich your dog's training process.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 199, how Dogs Learn Through Patterns and Repetition. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hi everyone, thank you for listening. Today we are talking about patterns of behavior, how dogs learn in patterns, and what that means for you, what that means for your dog, how it can help us both. But first, can you believe this is episode 199? That means 200 is next and we are super excited about it. So check in next week for our 200th episode. There might be a surprise involved. Just going to say my team and I have been brainstorming on how we can make this a special episode and thank all of you for being part of the show, so stay tuned. Now let's talk patterns. Do dogs actually learn in patterns? Yes, yes, they do, and you guys are getting really good at pointing out the patterns. If you spend time in my program with me, I help you think of things that way. So your dog's doing a behavior. I have you look at the pattern of the behavior. What happened before the behavior? What's the actual behavior? What happened after the behavior? And then we start to analyze behavior right, why the dog's doing it, what happens when they do it, do they like that, do they not like that, these kinds of things, and what will they do in the future, based off of current behavior? So it's a fascinating topic to me. But dogs tend to respond to predictable sequences because these routines provide them with clear expectations about what will happen next. When a particular set of actions consistently leads to the same outcome, dogs are likely to remember that and they respond to it. So we call this process associative learning, where dogs connect specific behaviors or stimuli with rewards, punishments or neutral outcomes. Even Now, the patterns in these associations shape how dogs behave and respond to cues as well. So let's just talk some specifics. Let me give you some examples, right? I love examples. I'm more of a hands-on kind of learning person myself. So, uh, examples of dogs learning the behavior via patterns. Let's talk about potty training. When I'm teaching a puppy to go outside to go potty, uh, we often create a pattern by taking the dog outside at regular intervals. So after meals, when my dog first wakes up from a nap, I take this puppy outside to a designated potty area. When the dog goes potty there, I praise it, I mark, yes, I pay it a reward. We have a little party and then over time my puppy learns that the sequence of I eat and then we go outside and I go to the bathroom and I get a reward for that is a good pattern. So I go outside and I go to the bathroom and I get a reward for that is a, is a good pattern. So, uh, I go outside, I potty in the grass. Amy says, yes, she gives me a food reward, I like that. And so they start to associate that.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Now we teach our dogs to ring bells to go outside. This would be similar. They learn the pattern of oh, I ring the bell, the door opens. I go outside, I go potty, I get paid for that. Now, in the beginning you know it's cute because we'll have clients that will say my dog, uh, is just ringing the bells to play, and I have to remind them. Well, yeah, the dog doesn't know that the bells are actually called potty bells. We know that, but they don't know that and it's going to take several weeks of repetition for the dog to connect all of the dots. So the first dot the dog connects is I ring the bells, the door opens. I ring the bell, the door opens. I ring the bell, the door opens right. And so they understand that concept pretty quickly. That's the first concept they grasp onto. And then the pattern increases. So I ring the bell, the door opens, we go outside, right to the potty area. Right, I ring the bells, we go outside to the potty area. And soon they start to associate oh, I ring the bells, we go potty. Um, and that pattern becomes developed. But that takes time and a lot of repetitions to get there. Uh, but they learn it because it's a pattern. So patterns can be super useful. And again through repetition, the dog associates oh, I go outside, I get paid. Or I ring the bells, we go outside, I go potty, I get paid. And all of that becomes a larger pattern.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Okay, another example would be the sit cue. So if I'm training my dog to sit, maybe I um, you know, have a treat or a toy. I hold it in front of my dog's nose, I lure it up and over their head until they're looking up at the ceiling and then their little rear end touches the ground, at which point I can say yes, and then pay them. After we've done several repetitions of getting the behavior. I can say the cue. So I say, sit, the dog sits. I say yes, I pay them. That becomes the pattern. I say sit, the dog sits. I haste mark yes, I pay them, right. So the dog learns. Oh. And Amy says sit, I sit down, I get paid. And they learn that pattern and so it's worth it to them to sit oftentimes because they know they'll get paid for it. And when I'm training puppies, you guys, I'm rewarding them frequently. So we talk about intermittent reinforcement later in our program, but in the beginning, when we have a young puppy, every behavior they do, we want to pay them for it because we're establishing these patterns of behavior. Okay, so keep that in mind.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Um, third example I'll give you would be leash walking. So dogs start to learn certain cues like uh, they see me pick up the leash, and then they see me put on my shoes, and then they start to anticipate oh, it's time for a walk, right. And how do they learn that? They learn that because that becomes the pattern over time. Uh, every time they go on a walk. Those are kind of the precursors, that's the the things that are happening before the behavior of going on a walk that they start to pick up on. And it becomes this pattern, this expectation of oh, amy's grabbing the leash, she's putting her shoes on must be walk time. So even before behavior happens they're learning things that can predict other behavior because of the patterns that we've chosen or established over time.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Training a dog to walk loosely on a leash also involves patterns where we consistently reward calm behavior or we redirect pulling by turning in a circle or doing a U-turn. We stop and wait for the dog to put slack in the leash and then we continue forward. So they learn through this consistency that oh, pulling doesn't work. If I pull, amy stops, we put on the brakes, I don't get to go anywhere, right, I don't get to get to the push that I want to go smell. So that pattern, if it is a good, consistent pattern, can help my dog choose in the future to walk with a loose leash, because then we get to where they want to go. Now, if I'm fickle, or some of the times pulling works and some of the times pulling doesn't work, then my dog can be confused a little bit about. Okay, well, there's not really a consistent pattern here. I'm not really sure the rules of leash walking, so it's very helpful if we can be consistent with it.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Okay, now what if your dog has a behavior that you don't love? You're like, I really really don't like that. They bark out the window at the birds, right. Or every time the mailman pulls up, they bark at them. Pick something, right. We all have maybe that one thing that we Some examples for you that I'll throw out there that I'm sure you have already thought of.

Speaker 1: 6:45

But jumping on people or barking excessively, right, these behaviors are things that we want to change, and anytime you want to change a behavior, we can do that by looking at the pattern that has been established by our dog or possibly by us. Sometimes we inadvertently create these patterns that we don't mean to be creating. So it's good to look at the whole picture and really assess what's happening here. Why is my dog barking? What's the antecedent, what's the precursor to the behavior, right? What's the actual behavior that's happening? And then what's happening after? What's the consequence? And is this whole picture working for my dog? Is this whole picture working for me? Where can we change things so that the behavior changes.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Now, remember, the dog gets to choose the behavior. So on our end we get to play with the antecedent and the consequence and figure out how we can make those work for better behavior down the line. Okay, so again, antecedent a I just call it ABCs. A is easier, easier to remember, right, but the antecedent is a trigger or cue that causes behavior, so kind of like the leash walking. When I pick up the leash or I start to tie my shoes, my dog might think, oh, the next behavior is we're going on a walk, right? So the antecedent was what happened before the walk. If the dog jumps on guests when they enter the house, then the antecedent would be the guest arriving. Okay, the behavior is again what the dog chooses. So we can influence behavior by setting our dogs up for success with the antecedent, and we'll talk about that. The consequence would be what happens after the behavior.

Speaker 1: 8:10

This is where we get into a little bit of trouble, so we can accidentally create an unwanted pattern. So, for example, my dog jumps, they get off of me. I say yes, I mark, or I mark yes, I pay them, and then I go on with my day and so they're like huh, I jumped, I, I pay them and then I go on with my day. And so they're like huh, I jumped, I got off, I got a treat. Can you see how that might become a future pattern? So if I want a treat next, I'll just go try to jump on Amy. Let's see what this happens again. So I jump on Amy, she says get off, I get off. Uh, I get paid.

Speaker 1: 8:41

So now I'm not saying that your dog getting off is bad, because that's good. That's what we want to have happen. We do absolutely want to teach the dog oh, if you're already jumping on me, I do want to interrupt and redirect my dog and reward them for redirecting. But it's really important that now I get out in front of the behavior so that that pattern of jumping, getting off and getting a food reward is not the new pattern, right? I don't want jumping to actually be part of the pattern. So what I need you to do is we got to get out in front of the jumping.

Speaker 1: 9:08

I see my dog coming to me. I'm going to start to anticipate he's probably going to jump on me and instead of waiting for him to jump on you, I'm going to ask him for that sit or that down, or that I go to bed or whatever I want to redirect him towards before the behavior of jumping happens. I'm going to ask him for a different behavior. That will then become the pattern. Oh, I come to Amy, I lay in this bed. Now she feeds me, right? Can you see how that's a better pattern in my from my point of view, versus the dog comes, jumps on me, gets off and gets a treat. So that only happens if we start to pay attention to the antecedent, or the a part of the behavior.

Speaker 1: 9:41

You guys I could talk about this for hours. I love the ABCs of dog training, um, but that'll give you a little insight into, yeah, any behavior. You guys want to change any behavior. Set a goal this week. What behavior do my dog and I want to work on, especially now that we're headed into some colder months, colder weather, we're indoors more often. This is when I start to set a new training goal. Maybe I've gotten a little lax. Bella's nine months now. Can you believe it? She's nine months old and things are going pretty smoothly. So, uh, you know there's a couple of things that I'm like yeah, we need to work more on that or this needs some work over here. So I'm starting to set some goals of okay through the winter, the next few months. This is what we're really going to focus on. So so I think it's a good time to just assess what are my dog's patterns of behavior, which ones are working for us, which ones are not working for us, and then can I set goals to change those.

Speaker 1: 10:25

And if you guys need help, please reach out to us. It is what we do. We love coaching people on how to train their puppies. We want you guys to be successful. We want you to love having a dog in your home. So please join our program, go through our courses. We have do it yourself programs. We have classes and courses you can join live via zoom from the comfort of your living room. You can also watch all of our classes and courses on demand. They're pre-recorded, ready to go with printable homework in case you need a checklist, like me. Okay, you guys have a great rest of your week and happy training. We'll see you next week for our 200th episode. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.