Why Does My Dog Ignore Me? 7 reasons why they "aren't listening".
Brie Blakeman, CPDT-KA
─Noble Woof Dog Training
Is your dog ignoring you?
Have you ever given your dog a known cue just to have them opt out and disengage even if they had seemed excited to participate in the training up until that moment? Perhaps you gave the cue, your dog looked at you, but then turned their head away, or sat down to scratch and then started sniffing. You gave the cue again and your dog turned their back to you and walked away. You may think they are being “stubborn” but these are tell tale signs of a poisoned cue!
What is a poisoned cue?
Reason #1: The cue ends in negative outcomes
First, a cue is a behavior request such as sit, or down, that invites your dog to perform a behavior. The most common cues we give to our dogs come in the form of hand signals or verbal cues. A poisoned cue occurs when a dog doesn’t appreciate the event that immediately follows the completion of the behavior.
Example: Poisoned Recall
Say you teach your dog to come when called and they are doing great. They come fast and enthusiastically every time. They’re so good at it that you decide to use the cue to get them inside when they would rather stay in the yard. It works, so you routinely use the cue “come” to call them inside from the yard.This always ends in you shutting the door behind them. Over time your dog stops responding to the cue “come” and even starts to run away from you. They aren’t being stubborn, they have just learned to associate the cue “come” with losing something they love (being outside). You have unintentionally “punished” their response to the cue.
Reason #2: The cue is only given in too challenging of contexts
Another common way to poison a cue is to ask for a known behavior in a situation that is too exciting or stressful for your dog to be successful. An example is to constantly ask your dog to “leave it” off food found on the street when they already have the food in their mouth. Unless you’ve taken time to teach your dog “leave it” off a real life piece of pizza on the sidewalk,, giving that cue in that context only teaches them that “leave it” means “enjoy that take out!”. It would be better to say nothing and just offer a giant cookie scatter on the ground to get them to let go.
Example: Poisoned Sit Cue
Another example is asking your reactive dog to sit while another dog passes them. If your dog barks at other dogs they likely are very stressed about being approached. Asking them to sit puts them in a very vulnerable position, increasing their stress levels. You may find that they start to avoid responding to the sit cue in other contexts as well, or when they do they respond slowly. This is because their experience of “sit” is that it is super challenging and stressful. Because of these unpleasant associations, the dog will either hesitate to perform the behavior or not do it at all.
7 Common ways to poison a cue
Silent threats or intimidation:
Getting in your dog's face and giving hard threatening eye contact to get them to follow through with a request will not make it more likely for them to complete the request more quickly in the future. They will just become more avoidant.
Over Handling:
Petting them in a way they don’t enjoy as a “reward”. Many guardians think their dogs find petting rewarding, but I meet hundreds of dogs a year, and typically only 2 of those hundreds actually enjoy petting. The rest hate or, or at best tolerate it but do not find it rewarding.
Leash corrections:
Popping or jerking the leash. You may get the response you want in the moment, but using pain or force to get them to follow through with a request will not make it more likely for them to complete the request more quickly in the future. They will just become more avoidant and fearful of the cue.
Physically Manipulating them:
Pressing, pinching, pushing or physically manipulating to get them to complete the request to get them to follow through with a request will not make it more likely for them to complete the request more quickly in the future. They will just become more avoidant and more handling sensitive.
Over training:
Drilling the cue until your dog is exhausted. Less is more in the realm of dog training. Getn3-6 amazing reps and then end the training session before your dog checks out. This will increase their desired to perform the cue and will also increase their engagement in training.
Mis-judging the difficulty of the request:
Asking for a cue when your dog is over excited or stressed is a good way to build negative associations with that cue.
Cue signifies the end of fun:
If our “ask'' routinely predicts the end of a fun activity we are essentially punishing our dog for doing what we ask.
Poor proofing:
Not properly proofing the cue in the first place. “Proofing,” in dog training parlance, means practicing a behavior in different environments and situations, until your dog generalizes the desired behavior and can do it anywhere, even with distractions.
What’s the remedy?
It’s pretty easy!
We all poison cues, so don’t feel bad. It’s easy to do even if you’re being very careful. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to undo too. You’re just going to re-build the behavior like you did the first time, and add a new cue once your dog understands the behavior goal. This may sound daunting, but since your dog already knows the behavior, it won’t really be like teaching it for the first time. It will feel like teaching a dog who already knows how to sit, to sit. You’ll find yourself moving through the steps lightning fast. The point is to invite them into the “game” without using the poisoned cue, and once they understand what behavior action you are looking for, you will fold in the new cue. With little repetition they will pair the new cue with the behavior, but without the icky feelings! You’ve successfully remedied your poisoned cue.
The silver lining of poisoned cues
You’ll be more educated next time
It definitely sucks when a cue gets poisoned, but each time we poison a cue, we learn something valuable about our dogs. Instead of seeing this as a failure, try to use it as a learning opportunity. You will learn ways in which your dog doesn’t approve of being handled, environments that are too challenging for your dog, and how to better set them up to succeed in the future. This will make it easier to avoid poisoning cues in the future!
The 80% 20% guide to avoid poisoning cues
When your dog is more invested in the environment that in engaging with you
Our dogs are busy creatures, and they are wired to forage, hunt and explore. When we ask our dogs to leave the environment to do a behavior for us, we are asking them to stop something really important to them. Instead of always pulling them away from the environment, if 80% of the time, our dog not only receives a high value reward for doing so, but is also encouraged to return to the activity we pulled them away from, they will likely find the behavior request doubly rewarding because they aren’t losing anything. So for the dog who doesn’t want to come inside, call them inside, give them something awesome and then send them back out again 80% of the time. This will prevent them from thinking the cue ends in something unpleasant and will prevent “poisoning” of your recall cue. Then, reserve the remaining 20% for times where you absolutely must call them in and immediately shut the door.
Maintenance Matters
Once a behavior is built, we have a tendency to think our work is done! Unfortunately, Dogs are a lot like cars. Once the car is built, it runs, but to keep it running we must put gas in the tank. The behavior must receive maintenance training to stick.
If 80% of the time you request the behavior when you know your dog can be successful, and only 20% of the time, request in pretty challenging contexts, you can avoid poisoning the cue.
The best way to do this is through creating controlled training setups that tip the scales in our dog’s favor so they are most likely to be successful. With practice, your dog won’t think twice about responding to the cue, and you will get an enthusiastic and reflexive response.