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.
- 1Focusing on only one trick per session
- 2Turning your back for a few seconds when the dog starts cycling behaviors
- 3Using consistent hand signals instead of spoken words
- 4Making the dog sit between tricks
- 5Taking a break from training sessions when the dog becomes over-excited
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, 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 ↗