The wide world of dog training has led the human being to try infinite learning techniques, but none like "Do as I do", based on social learning.
Dogs were once considered incapable of learning according to Cornell Montogmery's Theory of Social Learning (based on people), however, the study by Hayes KJ & Hayes C: "Imitation in a home-raised chimpanzee" J Comp Psychol of 1952 showed that chimpanzees could learn by imitation.
For this reason, the study by Jozsef Topál, Richard W. Byrne, Adam Miklosi, Vilmos Csanyi "Reproducing human actions and action sequences: “Do as I Do!” in a dog" Anim Cogn in 2006 with a Belgian tervueren shepherd, which was able to learn through observation and subsequent imitation, to perform different actions, just like chimpanzees.
In this article on our site we will explain what is social learning in dogs, known as "Do as I do" and what steps you must follow to put it into practice.
"Do as I do" in a dog
The experiment "Do as I do!" in a dog showed that dogs possess the ability to imitate untrained actions, as well as their ability to understand an abstract word with a concrete meaning, in this case the of "copy".
Philip, the dog that carried out the experiment, not only showed that he could imitate an action (for example, carrying a bottle from one place to another) but also that he was able to locate himself in the location of beginning and end that the person had made, with a very low margin of error (around 12%).
After carrying out a large number of tests, it was shown that Philip, after observing and receiving the imitation signal, was able to recognize a behavior and replicate it. It is thus pointed out that the dog has some imitative abilities, and there is still much to study about this type of learning.
Why use social learning?
Do as I Do aims to be a training technique that is simple and motivating for our dog and it isbased on observation We remind you that it is not a type of individual or behavioral learning typical of the species, nor is it operant conditioning, we are talking about social learning.
Below we will briefly explain how to apply this exercise, according to Claudia Fugazza and her book "Do as I do", as well as some essential details to take into account before starting this type of learning.
First phase: The dog learns the imitation rule
It is important to note that in Do as I Do, the dog is not learning a command, as it happens in basic dog training, the dog must associate the word "do it" (or any other chosen word) with the meaning of "repeat" an action The dog must not associate the word with a particular action, but with a wide variety of exercises that he must imitate.
To achieve our goal (for the dog to associate "do it" with repeating an exercise) we must work allowing our dog to express himself freely. If we let it carry out random behaviors and we reward whenever the dog repeats our exercise, we can make the dog correctly associate with this word. To achieve a faster and more adequate association we can use a clicker for dogs.
Second phase: Generalization of the standard
The key is to repeat the exercise enough times to achieve the correct association. In addition to using the word "do it", we can also add a visual cue to make it easier for the dog to understand the exercise.
Once the dog has learned that "do it" means to repeat the behavior that we have previously done, the dog can learn all kinds of exerciseswith this same technique. Later we will use specific words so that he finishes learning specific commands, such as "turn", "open the drawer" or "follow me".
This technique is highly recommended and encourages the dog to learn more quickly and by itselfAlso, there is no need to use direct reinforcement or any type of punishment. Finally, we point out that social learning combined with operant conditioning is much more effective than applying operant conditioning alone.
