Cognitive learning is learning that takes place without a reward or training, but when something motivational presents itself, such as learning how to open a gate, how to cross traffic, or my favorite example of all, when a friend of mine went unconscious on a nature trail, his dog took his shoe and started running up to people with it. When they went to look for the owner, they found my friend just off the trail. His dog saved his life!

 

The canine demonstrates the cognition to know what to do without practice, with zero training, without drill, and without ever demonstrating it before. So, in fact, they are observant and learn like children without you being aware of it. ​

 

Learning is not the same thing as training. It’s like a hobo dog that never needed training to know how to be good in public and knows how to ignore dogs while it’s with the owner without ever being trained to do so. It’s an experienced old soul. It’s like the old show The Littlest Hobo or Lassie.

 

People often search for  dog training in Orange County to suppress and control a dog, which often makes it more difficult for them to pick up on new things because they don’t often have the ability to make mistakes or observe them on their own. ​ People often control a dog and over manage because they are afraid the dog will be in danger while in public. When that happens, you will notice that Dog trainers in Orange County often say the same thing like a mantra, "That training has to be maintained and always practiced like a drill for the rest of your dog's life. If you don’t keep up on the training, your dog will regress." If this happens, your dog reverts to being more aloof and naive, making puppy-type mistakes! Why you might ask?  because the puppy never learned it on their own latently as they were developing. Instead they got sidetracked by obedience commands taught by a dog trainer. ​ Your puppy was never allowed to explore or develop maturity in themselves as well as make mistakes, because everything they did was controlled and managed with dog obedience commands.

 

​ Your goal should be that you want to raise a dog not train a dog. Imagine a mother duck being followed by her babies, and one of them didn’t pay attention to know how all the others got to the other side of a fence. The mother doesn’t race back over to help; she helps by staying nearby to let her baby know that she’s safe, and she waits patiently for her to figure it out. She then focuses on her mother much better and ignores fatal distractions in the future.

 

So if you wanted to get a puppy off leash without hiring a "dog trainer in Orange County” instead you teach the same lesson the same way as a mother and her ducklings. ​ You play hide and seek, you play chase, but be sure that you’re the only one that runs away; the goal is the puppy has to always chase you. Then Tada! You have a hobo dog! ​ Traditional dog training can’t duplicate this .  Remember, a trained dog only comes to you when you call them, and it always has to be reinforced somehow.

 

So when raising a puppy we want to teach tasks that are symbiotic to us through daily interactions and chores like children, similar to a service dog. This makes them feel helpful, so they develop maturity doing things that helps them feel useful and appreciated.