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In reply to the discussion: What is your favorite dog breed and why? [View all]wnylib
(21,762 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 31, 2020, 12:16 AM - Edit history (2)
in training Laddie out of his destructive phase (and the earlier housebreaking problem) for a few reasons.
One is that he had already shown, very early, that he learned things quickly, with only praise. Never used treats in training him. So I knew he was smart and capable of learning. Two, his response to praise meant he liked learning and liked feeling like he belonged. Three, his very early demonstration of understanding words and gestures was so remarkable that I loved the feeling of being able to communicate so well with an animal.
So, when the problem behavior developed, I believed in his ability to learn more appropriate behavior. It was just a matter of communicating to him so that he understood. When he "got it" I could almost see the "aha" moment clicking in his brain. It showed in his eyes and posture.
He was like the prize pupil in a class who acts out in boredom. You know he is destined for great things if you can just get through to him. I had fallen in love with his puppy cuteness and smarts and could not give up on him. I was so glad later that I had not given up.
You will probably understand this almost scary abillity to communicate from your experience with border collies. Laddie had a large whiffle ball (his favorite) and a smaller tennis ball. He was not a year old yet when this happened. I never worked at teaching him what "Get the ..." meant. Once he knew the name of something, he produced it if I asked, "Where is the ...?" Or said, "Get the..."
So one day I said, "Get the ball, Laddie." He brought the whiffle ball. To see what he would do, I waved my hand dismissively and said, "Not this ball. The OTHER ball." He took off and returned with the tennis ball.
He had learned the word ball for both of them. His mind processed my gesture of dismissal and he heard the word ball with a distinguishing emphasis (the word other). He concluded correctly that I did not want the whiffle ball, but still wanted a ball. So the alternative was to get another thing called "ball."
That's a lot of mental processing for a dog who was not yet a year old and had never been deliberately taught to distinguish between the two balls.
Too many other examples of his ability to pick up language nuances to describe here.