Hi everyone,

I thought we could discuss the concept of generalization. I was thinking about this as it seems as though Carlin is particularly good at generalizing (at least in my limited experience).

For example, Carlin knows "high five," in which when I say "high five" and offer a vertical palm, he rears up and hits it with both front paws.

Well, yesterday, at my girlfriend's soccer game (a field which he has never been to, on a hot day during a heat wave), he met some friendly, calm children (age 7- 8ish?) who politely asked if they could play with him. Carlin LOVES kids, and is exceptionally calm with them, so I agreed. I showed the kids Carlin's repertoire of tricks, which includes high five. Then one kid asked if he could do the high five with Carlin, and I agreed, not thinking he would do it. The kid says "high five" in a high pitched, speedy voice (in contrast to my low, slow voice) and holds out his little palm (compared to me, at 6'3). Guess what? Carlin "high fived" the kid like he had been high fiving kids his whole life!

This really didn't surprise me, as he has always seemed to "get" things quickly, and apply them to various places/things. For example, after teaching "up" (which is my command for jump onto this thing) in my basement, he would jump onto a bench at the park, or a crate at the pet store, with no extra coaching.


So, this makes me wonder about other dogs. How is your dog at generalizing? Are there any trends in breeds or types of dogs? Related to intelligence or drive? What about the potential downfalls, such as generalizing tug to ALL things, not just toys, or thinking they are allowed on ALL couches, rather than a particular one.

What are your thoughts and anecdotes, I'm very curious!

With most dogs it's more about our body language then our verbal commands. If you dog is super social with people it's not surprising that responds to others giving a "command".
One of my dogs would do this and one will just look at you like your daft. He's the quicker learner of the two but a more typical GSD in that he's not interested in anyone outside of family.
As to couches. That's no different. Some will take advantage of being allowed on one couch but not the others.
I've had a number of house dogs and some wouldn't think of getting on anything other then one recliner in the living room. Others would take advantage of any and all when no one is around.
FOR ME I think it boils down to more about training but I will say I've had one or two that seemed they were a 5 watt bulb in a 20 watt head.

One of my Pointers is a bit 'David Niven' "Oh how LOVELY to meet you!" the other one is "Yeah yeah, whatever"

The Boerboels, I have noticed, like the people I like, (mostly other 'dog' people) but Kaiser seems to know the people I DON'T like, especially the man over the road with the beard who delivers the paper, and who appears like Mr Benn whenever I am in the front garden to talk for the sake of talking - he stands on the window sill, all ten stone of him, giving him the bugger off look!

None of them are particularly bright, sit, stay and NO! is about as good as it gets

In my view ACDs are great at puzzling out what is being asked, they seem to have concentration and enjoy "what is it this person wants?" My dog loves the puzzle of it.

I taught my long-gone ACD mix Britte, Shake and Gimme 5 in the same training session. They are pretty much the same thing anyway... Then on a whim (still same session- talk about doggy brain overload) I asked her to "Gimme 10." Well, she gave me a look, reared up on her hind legs and planted one foot on each hand. I was very impressed at the time and now even more so...

I taught Woozle (ACD) to bring me his bowl at dinner time. Well he caught on to that very quickly, but one night, neither he nor I could find his bowl. So I put his dinner in his water bowl that one night. Well, the next time he had trouble locating his bowl, he brought me the water dish instead (kinda messy as you may imagine). It hasn't stopped there, however. It has gotten to the point that after a cursory search for "his" bowl, he will bring me pretty much any bowl he can find. My kids leave them lying around. Metal, plastic, ceramic, melamine, whatever. It doesn't even matter if he has used it before. He obviously knows what a bowl is in almost any form. He never brings plates or other dishes that I've let him lick off, just bowls...

Not sure what you mean by generalization, John, but from reading the other posts, I'll give it a stab. I'm assuming it pertains to the dog showing some kind of behavior without having been trained for it. I can't begin to list all the things that our Bailey does without our training her or with little prompting but here's a couple.

One of our fun things to do with Bailey is to have her search for hidden toys anywhere throughout the house. She never fails and always returns them for more play. Sometimes, we hide them in drawers, cabinets, or even in overhead storage that she can't get to. She will still figure it out and when she is certain the toy is in that hidden, inaccessible, place, she will just put herself into a sit and stare at it. One time we lost track of her searching and found she had been sitting in front of an overhead cabinet for almost 15 minutes before we came and found her. No one ever taught her that behavior.

Another behavior is her sense that we are going out somewhere, maybe to eat, and not taking her. She might just pick up on it by overhearing a phone conversation about going out or seeing us change clothes or not change. She will just take herself to her cage and lay there patiently waiting for her treat and for us to close the cage door. No cage command necessary.

I love how intuitive they are.