If you only ever practice “sit” with your dog inside the house, don’t be surprised if they have no idea what “sit” means when outside of your house.
If you only ever practice lead walking on your street walk, don’t be surprised if they have no idea what “heel” means when you’re in a park.
Dogs understand rules or patterns situationally. This means that once you master the “sit” in the house, you then need to go and teach it in every situation and every environment where you want it to be reliable.
Our dogs don’t naturally generalize a rule to all situations, so we need to show them step-by-step how the rules still apply in various scenarios.
So the next time your dog blows off a command they “know”, take a moment to think about the situation and the environment you are in – Is it one you have specifically taught that command in before?
