There is a sentence almost every dog trainer hears sooner or later:
“But he knows what he’s supposed to do.”
Your retriever sits perfectly in the kitchen.
He comes immediately when you call him from the other side of the garden.
He waits patiently while you put his lead on.
Then you take him somewhere more interesting, another dog appears, somebody throws a ball, or an enticing smell catches his attention — and suddenly the dog who appeared to know everything five minutes ago seems to have forgotten the lot.
It can be frustrating.
It can also lead us to a conclusion that isn’t necessarily helpful:
“He knows what I want. He’s just choosing not to do it.”
Sometimes it is worth looking at the situation rather differently.
Perhaps the dog hasn’t forgotten what he has learned at all.
Perhaps we have simply asked him to perform it in circumstances for which he isn’t yet fully prepared.
Knowing Something Is Not the Same as Being Able to Do It Everywhere
Dogs are very good at learning associations.
If you regularly practise a sit in your kitchen, your retriever may become extremely reliable at sitting in your kitchen.
Change the surroundings and, from the dog’s point of view, you may have changed rather more than you realise.
The garden is different from the kitchen.
The quiet lane is different from the garden.
The park with another dog fifty metres away is different again.
And the park with another dog racing past carrying a tennis ball may bear very little resemblance to the quiet kitchen where the behaviour was originally learned.
We may think we are asking exactly the same question:
“Sit.”
But from the dog’s perspective, the question has become considerably more difficult.
That is why I prefer to think of reliability as something we build, rather than something we continually test.
The Three Ds
A useful way of thinking about increasing difficulty is through the Three Ds:
Duration — Distance — Distraction.
Each one changes the exercise.
If your retriever can sit for five seconds and you ask for thirty seconds, you have increased duration.
If your dog can remain sitting while you stand beside them and you then walk ten metres away, you have increased distance.
If your dog can sit quietly in the garden but you then ask for the same behaviour while another dog is playing nearby, you have increased distraction.
Problems often arise when we increase more than one of these at the same time.
Imagine that your dog has learned to sit and stay for perhaps twenty seconds while you stand two metres away in your quiet garden.
You then go to the park.
You walk ten metres away.
Another dog is running nearby.
And you ask your retriever to stay for a full minute.
From our point of view, it may still be the same exercise.
From the dog’s point of view, almost everything has changed.
Look at What Changed
When a behaviour that has previously been successful suddenly starts to fall apart, one of the most useful questions we can ask is:
“What changed?”
Was the environment more exciting?
Were you further away?
Did you ask for the behaviour for longer?
Was your dog tired?
Had something already captured their attention?
Was the reward less interesting than whatever was happening around them?
Or did several of these things change together?
This moves us away from thinking:
“Why won’t my dog do it?”
and towards:
“What can I change to help my dog succeed?”
That is a much more useful training question.
Lowering the Criteria Is Not Going Backwards
Owners sometimes feel disappointed when I suggest making an exercise easier.
If their dog managed something yesterday, understandably they want to move forward today.
But lowering the criteria isn’t failure.
It is training.
Suppose your retriever recalls beautifully from twenty metres in a quiet field but struggles when another dog appears.
You don’t necessarily need to abandon recall training or repeatedly call the dog in the hope that eventually they respond.
You might increase the distance between your dog and the distraction.
You might shorten the recall.
You might begin with the other dog stationary rather than moving.
You might improve your dog’s connection with you before asking for the recall at all.
We are not giving up on the eventual goal.
We are simply creating a version of the exercise in which success is more likely.
Once that is working, we can begin building again.
Short — Simple — Successful.
Attention Comes Before the Cue
There is another question worth asking when a dog apparently ignores something they know:
Did we actually have the dog’s attention before we asked?
Imagine your retriever has just spotted something fascinating at the other side of the field.
Their eyes are fixed on it.
Their body has changed.
Their attention is elsewhere.
Then we call:
“Come!”
Nothing happens.
So we call again.
“Come!”
And perhaps a third time, slightly louder.
From our perspective, the dog has ignored three perfectly familiar recall cues.
But there was a problem before we ever said the word.
We had lost the dog’s attention.
This is why I place so much emphasis on:
Connection before Direction.
Before asking for the behaviour, establish whether your dog is in a position to respond to you.
Sometimes the best piece of training is not giving the cue yet.
Don’t Keep Testing What Isn’t Working
If your dog doesn’t respond successfully, repeatedly asking the same question under the same conditions rarely makes the question easier.
It can do something else.
The dog gets repeated experience of hearing the cue without responding to it.
That isn’t the kind of practice we want.
Instead, change something.
Reduce the distance.
Move away from the distraction.
Make the task shorter.
Regain attention.
Use an environment in which the dog can succeed.
Then reinforce that success.
This is one of the reasons behind a principle I return to frequently:
Reliability is built, not tested.
Testing tells us what the dog can do today.
Training helps the dog become capable of doing more tomorrow.
Real Life Is Part of the Training
Eventually, of course, we want our retrievers to respond outside the garden.
A recall that only works in the kitchen isn’t particularly useful.
A stay that disappears whenever something interesting happens isn’t yet reliable enough for everyday life.
So distractions are not something we should avoid forever.
They are something we should introduce thoughtfully.
Start with easier versions.
Build successful repetitions.
Gradually increase difficulty.
And remember that progress won’t always be perfectly linear.
There may be days when your dog appears ready for a more difficult challenge and others when reducing the criteria is the sensible choice.
That isn’t unusual.
Dogs are living animals, not machines.
Look for the Behaviour You Want
One of the easiest traps in dog training is becoming so focused on what is going wrong that we stop noticing everything that is going right.
Your dog may have failed to stay for thirty seconds — but perhaps they managed twenty.
They may not have recalled successfully past another dog at ten metres — but perhaps they were excellent at twenty.
They may have become distracted halfway through an exercise — but perhaps they voluntarily checked back in with you a few seconds later.
Those moments matter.
Look for the behaviour you want.
When you see it, acknowledge it and reinforce it.
Training becomes much clearer when both dog and owner learn to recognise success.
Perhaps Your Retriever Really Does Know It
So the next time you find yourself thinking:
“He knows what to do, but he just isn’t doing it,”
you may be absolutely right about the first part.
Your dog may understand the behaviour perfectly well.
What they may not yet have learned is how to perform that behaviour here, for this long, at this distance and with this particular distraction present.
That distinction matters.
It changes our response from correction to teaching.
Instead of asking:
“How do I make my dog obey?”
we can ask:
“How can I help my dog succeed?”
And quite often the answer is surprisingly simple.
Make the exercise a little easier.
Restore the connection.
Reward the successful response.
Then build again.
One small successful step at a time.
Best wishes,
Gerry Turner
Calm Canine Companion
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