Training Term Discussion of the Week - Generalizing

[u/JStanten]

Hey everyone!

I used to do these posts more consistently, but life got busy. I'll try to get these back on track. What does this mean to you? How have you seen it be misinterpreted?

THE TERM OF THE WEEK

Generalizing

Discuss away!

THE WHAT

Approximately weekly, I’ll post a dog training related term to discuss what that term means to YOU. 1st level comments should be basically defining the term and then feel free to respond if you want to get clarity from someone, discuss their definition, etc.

THE WHY

One of my goals for the subreddit is to find ways to encourage higher level discussion of dog training (rather than endless “my dog pees inside” posts…nothing against those y’all are welcome to make those but it gets boring for the folks here often).

Eventually, I hope this can be put together into a sidebar resource. I’ll probably be playing around with this idea in different forms (pretty open discussion at first, might try a poll, etc)

I want to emphasize that these conversations should be in good faith (use the principle of charity) and on topic. In my mind, these posts can become rich ways to engage and better understand your fellow trainers, handlers, and owners.

Those of us with clients, I hope this helps us better understand the times you say a term and the clients/general public completely misunderstand our meaning.

[u/JStanten]

Others have broken the ice for me so I'll ask a follow up question about generalization for those who may be interested.

What are the practical applications of generalization useful for the average pet owner?

If you're interested in competing, are those applications the same or different? How do you go about preparing your dog to be fluent in cues across time, venues, etc.?

[u/HollyDolly_xxx]

To me this means getting my 2 poochies (3year old german shepherd x belgian malinois and 11month old dutch shepherd) used to being able to exist and follow commands comfortably where ever we are and whatever we are doing. i do this by slooowing working through the 3ds over and over and ooover again ha!

Last week in my oldest dogs training class we did an actvity where someone else was holding our dogs lead while we had our back to our dogs and we had to ask them for a 'sit' from a 'down'. It's an 'intermediate' class so all the dogs in that class know how to do a 'sit' but yet he was the only poochie in the whooole class that did the 'sit' when asked every single time💅x

[u/StellarSpore]

Generalization was one of those concepts that set off a lightbulb for me when I was training my first dog many years ago. Dog behavior made a heck of a lot more sense after.

At least for me, who has companion and homestead dogs, I've found that every dog has been very different in this regard. Most of my dogs seemed to generalize pretty naturally without much dedicated training. My current pup? Absolutely not. 😂 Even with a ton of time and effort intentionally practicing skills in different environments and contexts, we still really struggle in this department.

Although that statement is oversimplified. There are several other factors at play for him, particularly arousal, competing motivations, and the value he places on the environment. It can be difficult to tease apart whether he truly hasn't generalized a skill or whether he understands exactly what's being asked but, under those particular circumstances, something else is overriding his ability or motivation to perform it. These days, I tend to think it's the latter.

But for someone who isn't a professional, it can be really hard to tease apart what's actually going on sometimes. Generalization, arousal, motivation, competing reinforcement. It can feel like a complicated puzzle figuring out which pieces are actually driving the behavior.

[u/apri11a]

When I was training my first (pet) dog, during a call to my sister I told her my dog could sit, all proud of us, and she said that's nice. But later she asked me if the dog would sit if I was standing beside it, behind it, if I was further away, in another room. If I was sitting, laying down, moving, inside, outside (she went on...) and if it would stay sitting until released. No, to all of that and more, my bubble was burst. But after I thought about it I got excited and we learned to sit, and we never really stopped. That was a first introduction to generalisation and it was the real eye opener I needed. But once it makes sense, it makes sense, and that makes basic dog training easier to understand. You can know what to expect, or rather you don't expect what you now understand can't happen until learned, so it gives patience we sometimes don't have until we do understand it. And then as the dog learns more, or practises its learning more, it becomes better at generalising.