“Mugsy, Down, Down, Doooowwwwwnnn, Down!” I repeat over and over again as Mugsy stares at me blankly, as if he is wondering exactly when I lost my mind.
I then duck down touch my hand to the ground and say “Down”. Mugsy lies down and looks to me as if to say. “why didn’t you say so human, and also where is my treat?”
The door bell rings on the TV and Mugsy runs to the door barking.
Both of these are auditory signals, one has a much more potent effect on Mugsy than the other.
How did a doorbell train my dog, better than I did?
Why didn’t it take someone walking through the door to gain a reaction the same way it took me using body language to get a down?
There’s actually a pretty simple answer to this that can make a huge difference to your training with the dog, and it’s even founded in science.
It’s all about the dog making connections based on auditory signal preceding the visual cues.
Dogs can learn a cue more efficiently if the lesser known variable comes first in a sequence. Body language is instinctual to dogs and verbal cues are learned.
When a doorbell rings the door doesn’t swing open simultaneously there is a brief pause where you stop what your doing, maybe secure the dog in it’s crate or on “Place”, and then walk over and open it.
When you teach a verbal cue by doing body language simultaneously with the verbal cue the dog simply follows the visual cue.
This is often called overshadowing.
Overshadowing
It’s easier for the dog to just focus on what they know, they don’t need to worry about what else is happening, and body language always wins because it’s the dogs first language unlike the verbal cue you are teaching. So the visual cues you give over shadow the verbal.
The answer is to avoid overshadowing.
Give the verbal cue, pause for just a second, then give the visual cue or body language. This gives the dog a chance to register the verbal cue, then learn from the body language, and then get it’s reward. This creates a sequence of events much like a door bell ringing.
Since the dog is registering the verbal cue you can start to fade the body language once the trick is being performed consistently. In higher distraction locations you may find it helpful to revert back toward body language initially to help the dog out.
It’s okay to stumble a bit, Dog caring is trained and literally even the best trainers have been caught getting lost in the excitement and connection with their dogs and overshadowing.
It’s not really even the end of the world to use body language in place of verbal cues, but if your goal is to have a dog that knows a behavior by word than it’s worth paying attention and working to practice giving the dog a sequence of events starting with what the dog knows least.
Being mindful of giving your dog a sequence of events in place of over shadowing is also helpful if you choose to layer in leash pressure, ecollar or other new concepts with your dog.
