What is Generalisation? Why does it matter?
Zoe Carter 
Explainer on generalisation to avoid frustration
Have you ever thought about generalisation. Many guardians can become frustrated they may say "my dog can do .... (insert sit, down, recall etc) perfectly at home but nowhere else. Why is this?
Very simply it takes practice for a dog to learn to generalise. A dog will take "cues" from their environment on how they might perform a behaviour.
Often our expectations don't always match up with the dog's or puppy's level of understanding, remember they will only ever, no matter how old they get, have roughly the cognitive abilities of a human toddler. A lovely quote that applies just as much to us human learners as to our dogs from Louise L. Hay goes: "we're all doing the best we can with the understanding, knowledge, and awareness we have".
When you first teach your puppy to 'lie down' notice the environmental cues they may be picking up alongside your verbal or visual cues - are you wearing a blue top, is your hair up or down, are you in the kitchen or front room. For a young pup every time you change the environment, all these little variations, for them it becomes a completely new behaviour to learn, everything they thought they understood has changed. You may now be wearing a red top or in the garage. Your puppy needs time and practice to learn which bits of the cue gives the critical information. they need experience to process and realise only your consistent visual movement or verbal phrase are important to achieve a behaviour that will earn a reward.
You can speed up your dog's grasp of generalisation by following the 10x10x10 guide, this suggests practicing each behaviour in 10 different places with 10 different handler body positions and at 10 different times of the day.
For instance if you were training a down you may start off in the living room, before going to the hallway, from there to the kitchen. As was mentioned in the 3D's blog (find Blog here) distractions make a difference, so try to keep your visual and verbal cues consistent while you change environments. Following this in a previously successful environment, try giving the cue with one hand behind your back or standing on one leg. Any time you can see your dog is struggling make it easier by reverting back to the previous successful picture for a couple of repetitions before increasing difficulty again.
Some people will say their dog or their breed is stubborn, I have yet to meet a truly stubborn dog, I certainly have met many dogs who didn't really understand what they were being asked, or the environments they were in were counter productive to success, it's a really good idea to include consideration of the internal environment not just the external, as excitement, worry, or pain can highly affect a dog's behaviour and a dog's ability to follow a cue. Whether it's a mild stomach ache, itchy skin or arthritis (not an old dog only disease approximately 40% of dogs under 4 years of age have OA in at least one joint)!
Be kind to yourself and your dog remember the quote "we're all doing the best we can with the understanding, knowledge, and awareness we have". Examine the environment and see if there is an opportunity to help your dog out if something doesn't go according to plan.
Categories: : Avoiding frustration, Generalisation