Why does my dog just guess random tricks instead of listening?
Dogs often cycle rapidly through a sequence of learned behaviors or throw paws in the air hoping to hit the right answer rather than responding to specific commands. This guessing loop makes it exhausting to train them and makes it difficult to get them to reliably differentiate between commands.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Focusing on only one trick per sessionDid this help you?
- 2Turning your back for a few seconds when the dog starts cycling behaviorsDid this help you?
- 3Using consistent hand signals instead of spoken wordsDid this help you?
- 4Making the dog sit between tricksDid this help you?
- 5Taking a break from training sessions when the dog becomes over-excitedDid this help you?
- 6Using the capture method to reward the desired behavior without promptingDid this help you?
- 7Pronouncing words more slowly and clearlyDid this help you?
- 8Training basic, high-priority commands before teaching fun tricksDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“She just cycles through a bunch of different tricks until one sticks.”source ↗
“She just doesn't differentiate the two.”source ↗
“When I simply wait for her to think it over (to catch it when she eventually does it) she just lays there and eventually huffs and jumps up and starts barking.”source ↗
“I know what I need to do, I need to patiently retrain everything she knows but its so hard when shes just ping ponging through everything.”source ↗
“I taught my 12 week old Boston terrier puppy spin. She’s got it down!! But now I’m trying to teach her “sit” and she tries to spin every time :/”source ↗
Where this came up
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