The Fourth Stage of Learning: Maintenance
The Fourth Stage of Learning: Maintenance
This is the last stage of learning. This is where the dog is now ready to perform the new behavior they learned. At this stage the dog should offer this new behavior rather consistently and should be smooth in movement and able to comply with just one word.
For them to not experience the extinction of this new behavior you need to make sure you still provide training sessions here and there, so it stays going strong.
If you do notice that they are becoming sloppy with this new behavior, you will need to go back and think about the steps that were trained. What step is it they are missing? Once you figure that out, you will be able to have them rework the sloppy step.
With the last blog we used “Spot’ to tell the dog to go to the spot and stay until realized or better, yet they know what state of mind you want from them before they leave that area. When you take that training and maintain it you would want to make sure they don’t stop any part of the training.
A good example here is the dog starts to leave the spot too soon or before being permitted to. This would tell you to provide a session with them sitting in their spot and staying there until you release them. You would want to do a few sessions throughout the day for a couple of days until they stay as directed.
This is the last stage of learning and so I want to take this time to recap what all of this breaks down to.
We have to let the dogs know what is expected of them: The Acquiring stage.
This is when they are creating a new rhythm to the behavior they were trained to do. They automatically start providing you with the behavior when asked. This is when you can make the behavior stronger and better. Automatic
They are learning that the new behavior will be applied in other areas of their lives or activities. Application
This is when the behavior is strong and needs little information from you to comply. You provide training sessions occasionally to keep it strong and go back a step if they are becoming sloppy.
Understanding how they learn is going to help you know where they are in the behavior you are teaching. It helps us understand when we can move forward and when we might need to slow down or go back a bit. Frustration can be avoided because you now know when you can move up a step based on the response. This will give the dog the best chance at success and less chance of correction. Take the time that is needed to train them correctly and be sound. In time they will understand what is expected and soon they will be the best dog they can be.