Reason #2: Training at home doesn’t translate to a trained dog in the world
A common reason why your dog ignores you is that you have not taken them anywhere to train. You’ve got to take the show on the road!
Teaching your dog to “sit” or “stay” at home with minor distractions does not translate to an obedient dog in various scenarios. You’ve got to account for the 3 Ds of training - Distance, Duration, and Distraction. Anytime you increase one of these, you must decrease the other two. This is how you “proof” training for a variety of settings and situations.
Your dog might be the master of a “sit-stay” in your house in the kitchen you’ve practiced in a hundred times but take that same dog to the park with dogs walking nearby, children playing, and all the smells, sounds, and scenery of the world and that master “sit-stay” will be a distant dream.
Solution:
Take the show on the road! You must give your dog many scenarios/pictures while training for them to be reliable with their training. Working in the driveway is different from working in the backyard, which is different from working in your local hardware store.
Apply the three Ds of training (Distance, Duration, Distraction) to your training and you will be surprised how quickly your dog makes progress. People usually hit a plateau early in training because they are simply asking too much of the dog, too soon.
For the “sit-stay” example above, you could adjust your expectations with the 3Ds in mind with something like the following: 1. Distance at home is 10 feet, Duration at home is 30 seconds, 3. Distractions are moderate with kids playing nearby. Criteria at the park could start with something like this: 1. Distance of 3-5 feet, 2. Duration of 3-5 seconds, 3. Distractions of people, dogs, and playground close by.
Once the dog shows its strength and weaknesses you can start adjusting each of the 3Ds a little a time. Every dog will be different in terms of how quickly they progress, and this will also depend on how much you have practiced and how consistent you have been.
Using the 3Ds can help make it a reality that you’ll be able to have a reliable dog in a variety of places where there are other people, dogs, sights, sounds and smells. This is after you’ve put a little time and energy into your training with you dog.
Don’t give up, and be sure to adjust criteria for the situation you are putting the dog in. My expectations will be lower than what I expect at home when I first take a green dog to a new location to train. I will still expect the dog to work, but I will adjust criteria in terms of the distance, duration, and distractions so that the dog is successful.
Training is like a building a house, you do it from the ground up!