Generalizing a Behavior

New dog trainers often get ahead of themselves when they start to teach their dog a new behavior. In a reward-based system, we go through the learning phase in a distraction free environment. It doesn't take long for a trainer to find out that they can teach their dog to sit when he is facing the dog in the kitchen, but the minute they take the dog out of the kitchen, the dog won't sit. This is because the dog has not "generalized" the command.

In this video, we discuss the road to generalizing commands. This video was taken directly out of our online course and training DVD, Basic Dog Obedience.