Context Is Key: Understanding Repetition - a podcast by Ty Brown

Today I want to talk about something I call a “contextual repetition.” I’ve been thinking about a challenge that some of our clients have, and recently came up with that term to refer to it.


A lot of people find that when they start training, they see big results in certain areas. But in other areas, it takes them longer to get the results and sometimes there is a little frustration. Perhaps their dog goes nuts when somebody rings the doorbell, or doesn’t immediately respond to aggression training.


I’ve determined that the challenge lies in contextual repetitions. Let’s say you're teaching your dog to sit. You can teach this command in a few minutes, and you can get repetitions in easily around the house. You can get hundreds in the space of a week! As we all know, repetition is a big key to learning. So your dog might only take a few days or a week to learn “sit” or “lay down” if you work on it all the time.


Yet the person whose dog learned “sit” quickly might become frustrated when someone rings the doorbell and their dog won’t sit. A big problem is that they’ve done all of their repetitions in a context where nothing else is going on and all their dog needs to do is sit down. But it might take months to get enough repetitions of sitting after the doorbell rings if not a lot of people come to your house.


Oftentimes, we have to figure out a way to cheat and get those repetitions in context. In case of the doorbell, you might get your neighborhood kids to knock on the door. If you're dealing with aggression, you might need to find some dogs behind a fence in your neighborhood and work around them. That’s “cheating.” But you need to get those contextual repetitions if you want to solve a problem.


Sometimes a client is doing everything perfectly, and all they need to do in order for their dog to change its behavior is do the training in the correct context. Part of this is state of mind, and being aware. A lot of people get used to grabbing their dog and putting it in the bedroom when someone rings the doorbell. So awareness is key to getting enough repetitions. But having the right methods in that moment can be critical in that moment too, so that you can get your dog to obey.

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