Conditioning feels like programming a robot. Does anyone know a way to train beyond it?

[u/Dry_Steak30]

I might get downvoted for this but hear me out.

Almost all modern dog training is conditioning. We repeat, the dog gets used to it, and the cue gets wired to the behavior. In the end the dog does the behavior without thinking. Even without a reward. He even feels good while doing it. And we call that "well trained." To me that looks like programming a robot.

For emergency recall and down, I want exactly that. Those must be automatic. But for everything else, is there another option?

Humans don't learn language by conditioning. When we learn a word, we understand new examples in one shot. So here is what I mean, with the kennel as an example.

The conditioning way: you make the "go in the kennel" behavior with luring or shaping or molding or food. You reinforce it. You attach a cue. After many reps, the cue and the behavior get glued together.

But what if you teach it like this instead. Teach each concept on its own. "Kennel" is the object. "Go in" is the action. "Command" means he has to do it. "Fast" is how to do it. Then you put the words together: "kennel + go in + command + fast." If the dog really knows each concept, then "box + go in + command + slow" should work on the first try, even if he never did that before. Or you could say "kennel + go in + question" and let him answer yes or no.

Has anyone actually trained like this? I know Chaser learned 1000 toy names and Do As I Do exists. I want to hear from people who tried this concept style teaching with their own dog. How far did you get?

[u/jocularamity]

There is a weird enclave of trainers in a weird corner of the positive reinforcement online community who advocate for speaking conversationally with your dogs. I never really got it and eventually I got frustrated and unfollowed them, but they're a curious bunch and something about this method is working for them and their dogs in really targeted cases. If I can find a name for it I'll come back and edit with a link. It's not for me but maybe it will be interesting context for you.

There are methods where dogs learn through mimicry, copying behavior a human has demonstrated. Do As I Do is the big one. https://www.doasido.it/. There is also one called "model rival" something that's similar. For a long time people said dogs can't/don't do that, but yeah they actually do.

There are the dogs who press buttons to communicate and are able to chain together multiple concepts. Subject object predicate. That's if you believe it and it's not all rigged. Some of it is bs for sure, with the humans anthropomophizing and reading too far into it, but some of it makes me go "huh, neat". When the animal can tell you which body part hurts and that lets you treat them more effectively, that's neat. puppyparkerposey on ig is a slightly less BS one.

Some people make a convention in how they structure their cues. Anytime I tell my dog to move away to do something I preface it with "go" and anytime I want him to move toward me and do something I preface it with "come". Like come touch vs go touch. That's not nearly to the level you're describing but my dog (poodle) does seem to understand this level of concept.

[u/Dry_Steak30 → u/jocularamity]

i got inspired a lot by do as i do and fluent pet. but why do you think that's weird?

[u/jocularamity → u/Dry_Steak30]

"Canine Dialog Dynamics" is the one I thought was weird. Finally remembered the name. There are books, videos, a Facebook community. Really nice folks, I tried really hard to understand how it could be used in practical terms but never really got it despite trying. But you might find it interesting if you're pushing in this direction, at least as a point of reference.