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"BORING"
When a dog finds an experience boring, tedious or irrelevant to
its day-to-day survival or safety, it either FORGETS the
whole incident or stores the environmental
photo in its long-term memory so that when its senses detect a
similar "photo" it will recognise the
Event as being boring and trivial. The dog will ignore the Event
and "do it's own thing".
For instance, if the handler uses the dog's name for lots of different reasons
eg -
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"JOE!"
"JO JO!"
"JOEY!"
"JOE BOY!"
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- they are continually using the dog's name for no apparent
reason as far as the dog is concerned.
- its name is used to tell the dog off, with the handler saying
the dog's name in a harsh and aggressive way.
- they call the dog's name but hardly ever reward or acknowledge
the dog when it comes to them.
- (see Dictionary and Suggestions for Dog Commands & Signals
for more on the subject of verbal commands and visual
signals).
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Eventually the dog will ignore the sound of its name as it seems
to have very little relevance to the dog - in other words, it does
not recognise it's name as a signal to look at the handler.
Lodgers often have a number of boring
"photos" stored in their long-term memories and and this is why
they become very withdrawn and introverted with the humans and dogs
around them.
Following on the example that we used for a "Good"
long-term memory, below is an example of what happens if the dog
assesses the Event as boring or irrelevant -
- The very first time a dog goes to a new training
venue
The dog is intrigued by the presence of all the humans and dogs at
the venue. It tries to do calming signals to
greet the other dogs but they seem unable or unwilling to respond
(probably because they are restricted by their leads, or are too stressed to notice the dog's body
language).
All the humans seem to be talking and listening to one another
most of the time, which the dog has learnt since puppyhood to be a
"Boring" environmental photo as humans never interact with their
dogs while talking to one another.
The dog finds the whole situation unrewarding and even though its
handler occasionally rises from their seat to do an exercise with
the dog, it decides it is far easier just to "switch off" and wait
until it is time to go home.
The dog stores all the environmental information of the situation
as a "photo" and retains it in its long-term memory. On subsequent
visits to the training venue the dog will compare what it detects
from its senses with the "photo" is has in its memory and will
automatically loose interest - it is now programmed to see dog
training as boring.
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