A lot of people I come across who are trying to train their dogs often tell me that their dog is stupid and doesn’t do what he’s told to do – or what he’s told not to do.

They tell me that they repeatedly tell their dog to do something ie ‘stay’ but Fido ‘ignores’ them and does his own thing…or he can’t do it because he’s ‘thick’ and doesn’t know what they want him to do…

And that last sentence is the most crucial. If Fido doesn’t know what you want him to do, perhaps it’s not because he’s stupid but because you aren’t ‘explaining’ in terms he can understand.

What I mean by this is that dogs aren’t stupid – but they do learn differently to us.

And maybe we need to look at our teaching methods, rather than blaming our dog for our inability to get the information across.

Let’s call it a species barrier!

When I meet new clients, the first thing I do is teach them the basics of understanding how a dog learns (and yes I focus on positive reinforcement as personally I’m not convinced that punishment and aversives deserve a place in every day dog training let alone the dog training field as a whole!).

Essentially I want them to understand what they can do to help their dog to learn a ‘command’ or to redirect an undesirable behaviour.

It is quite remarkable when you see a client convey ‘information’ (ie what they want the dog to do) and have the dog respond correctly (yes, Fido stays or barks or does the macarena!) – and then seeing the penny drop for the client!

This is why I love clicker training so much – you can be so much more precise when trying to catch the desired behaviour than if just using words.

People are far too eager to call their dogs ‘stupid’ or ‘stubborn’ without thinking to take a step back and look at the way they train.

How can we expect dogs to understand us and the way we work when the majority of us seem to have little to no idea about how a dog learns?

And the simple fact is, if you crack how a dog learns, you can turn it to your advantage in an instant.

If you find out what motivates (and rewards) your dog (toys, food etc) you have a very, very good chance that your desired behaviour will be repeated. Catch the behaviour with the clicker (or your usual ‘yes’/'good boy’ etc), give the reward and hey presto! Fido begins to understand what you want…

…because repeating that action for you brings him a reward/positive outcome…and so repeat it he does!

There is no need to get frustrated and angry with your dog. If he doesn’t do ‘sit/stay/down/jump’ etc, it’s not because he’s defying you (no alpha nonsense here please!) and it’s not due to stupidity – it’s simply a case of not understanding.

Find out how your dog learns, find out what he LOVES and implement it into your training. When you see your dog start to offer behaviours you know he’s loving training and doing his best to perform the behaviour you want (although more likely he’s really thinking, come on! I’m doing all this fancy stuff now give me that big piece of chicken/squeaky toy/tuggy game!!!).

Learn how your dog learns – not only will your dog respond but your training skills will become much stronger. And so will your bond with your dog.

But most of all…keep training fun for both of you!