My Lab puppy recently began training me to get up 6-8 times a night. In initial crate training she would yip, whine or bark to go out. Over 3 months she transferred this learning that I would let her out for potty to her desire to just go out and fiddle around in the warm East Central Florida early morning hours.

Under pressure from my attorney wife who was starting a crucial trial prep and long trial period, I was in need of a quick modification of the puppies training of me and ending the sleep deprivation experiment with the wife.

I bought a Bark Limiter. Within 3 nights and a total of 5 level-One corrections and 5 level-Two corrections, the puppy is now quiet all night and no crate mistakes. However, this was done at risk with the collar on her in the crate.

Since my wife as started her trial, I can not experiment with the puppy. I am interested to learn about how dogs transfer learning. Obviously, the puppy transferred her understanding of barking in the crate from potty needs to fooling around desires.

Is it also possible that she has transferred from the bark collar to the crate as the source of non-barking enforcement? Does anyone have relevant experience. My objective would be to remove the bark collar and not use a dummy one either in her crate.

So, the short version of your question is, has she learned to be quiet in her crate, for good, or only when the collar is on.

Only one way to find out. Take the collar off. You'll find out soon enough. If she starts barking, it only takes two seconds to slap the collar back on and end it.

BTW, cheap dummy collars can be made of a flat collar with batteries duct taped to it. Just the weight may fool the pup into thinking the collar is there.

Why the concern about safety?

No, the short version of my question is how do dogs transfer learning from one context to the other. That's a much more interesting question to answer for myself than will she be quiet.

Understanding what is happening when she makes an association and then a transfer may enable me to train better. It seems that dogs transfer know behaviors like sit and down into new contexts to see if they like the reward. But is it the same with negative consequences such as getting shocked by the bark collar. So in the example I previously posted, if the collar transfers to the crate could this cause the crate to be viewed negatively. She has done such a fantastic job in her crate and I am concerned that the crate will become the negative source and not the collar. Thus undoing all of the great crate training. Also,I only care to limit the barking while in the crate so the collar is otherwise off.

I would prefer not to have a collar on in her in the crate for safety reasons as she might hang-up the actual device in the grate of the crate. So a dummy collar doesn't solve my underlying crate safety anxiety.

Edited by Andrew Hess (12/15/2008 02:45 PM)
Edit reason: Spelling

Ah. Well, now I'm at a total loss.

My own experience with this: I had gotten into the bad habit of letting my little cherub out of his crate at night when he barked, thinking he always had to potty or was uncomfortable (he's had lots of physical issues.) Doesn't matter the reasons, though. He associated barking with being let out of the crate; I wasn't consistent. He'd go for weeks without having to sleep in the crate, then I'd decide it was time to try again. Until he started the barking and I'd figure he was in pain/ had to go out. Inconsistency.

Now, I've decided he is to always sleep in the crate. There was no fuss for the first few nights, then he'd start with his late night barks or growls. Ignoring him for a week straight did nothing but make me an angry, tired woman, so I started keeping his e-collar on him at night. It only took a very few nights of nipping his barking in the bud, and he's been bark free for months now, without the collar on. (He did recently have a case of the runs, and I did get up and let him out when he barked during the night, but the mid-night woofing did not return, as was feared.)

Just my experience. Take from it what you will.

I would not think that the dog would associate the bark collar experience to his crate.

Reasons. He was already (I assume) crate trained, and comfortable in his crate, before the collar came along.

He then realized that if he barked (stimulus) you would let him out (response). Operant conditioning pure and simple.

Then you put a collar on him. He barked (stimulus) he gets nicked (response). More operant conditioning.

The nick was a response to the bark, and the fact that the dog no longer barks proves he understands this. The crate has nothing to do with whether or not he barks.

I guess you are asking if the dog is associating his behaviour with the context in which he does it (i.e. if I bark in the crate I get shocked, if I bark in the yard I do not). THe answer is very likely yes. Is the crate itself negative because of this? I doubt it, because he knows the consequence (shock) is due to his BEHAVIOUR within that context, and not the context itself. But if you are concerned, add positive associations to it like toys and treats. My dogs get a treat every time they go in their crates. They never complain about going in!

I know my dog has learned that some things get him treats and some things get a foot in his ass (not literally of course). So he tries things out to see what they get him.

He'll try chewing on different things, or licking things or putting his head on my knee or peeking at me under the table (seriously, the funniest thing ever) and he notes what reaction he gets. If he gets a laugh or a pat or a treat he does those things more often.
If he gets told off he'll try it again later when I'm not looking.

So I don't know about transferance of a certain lesson learnt but I definitely know that dogs will just try stuff and see what happens. I guess if they got the same outcome as when they tried a previous behaviour they may put them both in the same 'box'. But I doubt they would decide that the result of one behaviour would be the same as another behaviour without proof.
I've heard/read on this site that dogs know exactly what they were doing the moment the reward or correction happened. So if she barked and got corrected for it she would know that the bark is what did it and nothing to do with the crate.