My dog only listens when I have a treat in my hand.

Part Five:

 The training process is full of pitfalls. One such pitfall is we don't always realize what dots the dog is connecting in his own mind.  We see things from our own perspective.

Remember I said dogs were associative learners? If you give your dog a signal and he does not comply, do you think, "Oops, I need a treat." Then do you run off to get a treat? If you do that you might be teaching your dog to wait to respond until you have the treat in your hand.

The mostly likely pitfall is this: the treat in the hand simply becomes the signal you have taught. In learning theory there is a concept called overshadowing. If two or more stimuli are presented during training one stimulus is going to be more powerful than the others. Since food is more important to dogs than the wave of your hand or a sound coming out of your mouth it is very likely the food stimulus will overshadow the hand or verbal signal you are trying to teach. When you take away that stimulus (the treat) the signal collapses. This is why it is important to get the food out of your hand as soon as possible.

 Stay tuned for the final chapter, part six.