Can you do it in a box?

A picture from Gaius' monthly hike with the dog scouts

Well if you have been reading Susan Garrett's blog this week you'll see that she's been talking about distractions and the environment and how they relate to cue understanding. Basically, there may be things you think your dog understands, but in the presence of something new they may not understand their cue. For example, your dog might know what the word sit means when you are standing in front of him, but what if you are running? Or standing behind him? What if you're lying down? What if he's at the dog park? Or in the woods?

She calls it can you do it in a box training. Like from Dr. Sues.
Can you do it in a bow?
Can you do it with a fox?
Can you do it here or there?
Can you do it everywhere?

Dogs need behaviors to be generalized in order to do them consistently. There are creatures that understand patterns, but because they are so good at it, it's easy for them to trick us into thinking they understand.

For Example a likely scenario in a household might be: 'Mommy always makes me sit before dinner. So when I see he reach for my food bowl I sit. The fact that she says the word is inconsequential. In fact I don't know what that word means at all' Because of this, we need to be unpredictable. Test your dogs understanding at home. You might be surprised what they do and do not actually know!

So in Susan's blog post she asked people to come up with tests to check there dogs understanding of basic cues like sit down and stand.

So here's what I came up with. Enjoy! (watch Susan's video too. It's really good)



i do not like them in a box.
i do not like them with a fox.
i do not like them in a house.
i do not like them with a mouse.
i do not like them here or there.
i do not like them anywhere.
i do not like green eggs and ham.
i do not like them, sam-i-am.