There’s no substitute for repetition in learning. I distinctly remember practicing penmanship and memorizing times tables in grade school. Our brains are not adapted to see or try a skill only once or twice and be proficient at it. How many times do athletes run drills? How much practice does it take to get to the Olympics? How much work does it take to earn an OTCH?

There is no question that repetition is required for dogs to learn all of the incredible stuff we teach them. From Obedience to Rally to tricks and scent work, scripted progression along a time-line is necessary when it comes to learning. The repetition, though, isn’t best served by what we refer to as “drilling”. If the repetition is performed identically over and over and over it becomes mind-numbingly tedious, whether the subject is human or canine. The best teaching methods create a desire to repeat behaviors, and an eagerness to learn more.

The key is in the progression itself. If you create a gradient to follow that gradually increases the parameters of the exercise, you can create a desire to continue learning. We all want to be successful, and so do our dogs. Let’s look at something as simple as a recall. It’s probably one of the most important things we teach a puppy to do on command. We teach the pup to come a short distance for a cookie. Perhaps we have two handlers calling him back and forth for a cookie. We extend the distance and start asking for a sit in front, but sometimes we may toss a toy instead of asking for the sit. By the end when we have a polished recall with all components, we will have done hundreds, if not thousands of recalls, but they won’t all have been the same, and hopefully both dog and handler would have enjoyed the process.

Every behavior we teach the dog is a progression of incremental adaptations of our foundation, leading to the final desired behavior which includes a responsibility to perform that behavior. Reinforced enough, learning becomes reinforcing in itself. Just like we have “professional students” who never seem to want to leave higher learning, dogs can also get hooked on the learning process. Watching the learning take place is reinforcing for us as well.

All of my dogs love the learning process. They jostle each other, hoping for a turn to work with me. Learning is a complex endeavor. With a willing partner that is “asking” us to teach them, there is never, ever going to be a time when the dog is, as some handlers say, “blowing us off”. If the dog isn’t getting the message we’re trying to deliver, it isn’t because he has suddenly decided to annoy us, it’s because he truly doesn’t understand or we skipped a step that caused a mixed or incorrect understanding.

It is important to have “someplace to go” with your teaching. You never want your student to progress faster than you expected and not have a plan for the next step. Training is a creative process, not a recipe. We must envision the finished process and reason out how to creatively get there. That process is contingent on many variables, which won’t necessarily follow your pre-planning. The best trainers have enough knowledge and experience to adapt the process at a moment’s notice, to where the dog happens to be taking us on our training journey. We have to be ready to anticipate any response the dog may give us, react appropriately, and proceed on the new training time-line. Repetition, done correctly, creates confidence. It’s all in knowing when to continue and when to stop, and that information comes from experience in reading the cues your dog is sending you.

Titles may be the proof a training program is working, but the joy is in the process. Don’t rush the process – enjoy the journey.