Get Your Dog To Respond Faster: Latency In Dog Training #222
Shaped by Dog with Susan Garrett
DogsThat
4.8 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Visit us at shapedbydog.com
When you cue your dog to perform a behavior, do they respond with lightning speed or a leisurely pace? The lag time between your cue and your dog’s response is called latency. When I design a training plan for my dogs, latency is built in, because I want super fast responses to cues. We’re covering how why dogs might respond slowly and what you can do to fix it.
In the episode you'll hear:
• What you need to know about latency of behavior.
• When to consider a dog’s behavior fluent.
• Why dogs develop lag times between a cue and response.
• What to consider if dogs are slow to respond.
• How to leverage arousal states for focused and fast behaviors.
• Common mistakes people make that create lag time for dogs.
• How to reduce latency with the example of a dog sitting at the door.
• Why to take the problem away from the environment.
• About using Jean Donaldson’s “Push, Stick or Drop” to reduce latency.
• When to test the latency of a behavior in new habitats.
• That fast responses generalize well to many behaviors.
Resources:
1. Podcast Episode 172: How To Teach Your Dog Anything With My Training Plan - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/172/
2. Podcast Episode 189: All The Things That Influence Your Dog’s Behavior And What Behavior Tells You - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/189/
3. Podcast Episode 103: Excited Or Suspicious Dog? Dealing With Your Dog’s Emotions - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/103/
4. Podcast Episode 47: Don’t Wanna, Don’t Hafta: What To Do When Your Dog Refuses To Obey - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/47/
5. Podcast Episode 86: How to Train Unmotivated or Overexcited Dogs - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/86/
6. Podcast Episode 117: What’s More Important Than Your Dog Training Sessions? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/117/
7. Podcast Episode 133: Become Your Own Dog Training Coach With This Video Strategy - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/133/
8. Podcast Episode 184: Proofing Vs Generalizing In Dog Training To Grow Skills And Confidence - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/184/
9. Podcast Episode 141: Average Or Better Dog Training Question: What Did You Just Reward? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/141/
10. Podcast Episode 144: Teach Your Dog To Listen No Matter What… Even If You Think They Are Stubborn - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/144/
11. Podcast Episode 155: 10 Ways To Teach A Sit WITHOUT A Food Lure! Unreal Results For Puppies And Dogs Of All Ages - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/155/
12. Podcast Episode 145: 10 Ways To Teach A Dog To Lay Down And How To Shape It Without Luring - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/145/
13. Watch this Episode of Shaped by Dog on YouTube - https://youtu.be/j0M9efVJFmk
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | When you ask your dog to perform a behavior, does he do it like in lightning time or more of a |
| 0:07.0 | leisurely pace? Or maybe some behaviors he can do quicker and others, there is a little bit of a lag time. |
| 0:15.9 | Well, in today's podcast episode, we're going to talk about why you may have that leg time in your |
| 0:22.0 | behaviors and how you can fix it if, in fact, you do want to fix it. |
| 0:26.9 | What you're seeing in. Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog. |
| 0:40.1 | What you're seeing in your dog's behavior, if they're not responding to the cues, quickly, |
| 0:46.6 | is something called latency. |
| 0:49.2 | Latency is the actual lag in the behavior between when the dog gets a cue and when they get around |
| 0:57.4 | to doing it. Now, when I design a training plan for my dogs, latency is built in, which means |
| 1:04.3 | I want it pretty well instant. I cue you, you do something. And so it's a criteria. And when the dog meets all the criteria |
| 1:14.0 | of behavior, that's called a fluent behavior. So the dog has been trained to fluency. Now, why might a |
| 1:23.3 | dog have this long lag time with some behaviors? First of all, and the thing you should always |
| 1:29.7 | consider is the dog in pain. For example, my 12 and a half year old Bordacoli Swagger, he started |
| 1:35.8 | sitting slower and slower at the door and it turns out he had some arthritis. So, |
| 1:40.3 | we just stopped waiting for him to sit at the door to be released out. He just gets to go |
| 1:45.3 | on a queue. He just stands and waits now instead of sitting and wait. So pain is something |
| 1:50.6 | you always want to rule out, even with a young dog. There may be a reason why they're not |
| 1:55.2 | responding in the way that you are expecting them to respond. Number two reason is, yeah, sorry, it's training. |
| 2:02.2 | Chances are you have built that long latency into the behavior as a part of the training. |
| 2:09.6 | Now, very likely you did it unconsciously and how would that happen? It would happen if you |
| 2:15.4 | weren't aware of the idea of latency to begin with, |
| 2:17.9 | so you didn't actually put any concern to what you were reinforcing or more likely how quickly |
... |
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