The Selective Hearing Myth: Why Your Puppy Isn’t Actually Ignoring You. Puppy Translation Guide Part 2
These lines might sound familier:
“My puppy has gone deaf.”
“My puppy is stubborn.”
“My puppy has selective hearing and chooses not to listen to me.”
Truth is, it is highly unlikely that any of these are true.
Your puppy’s brain is developing still. Think of it like an old dial-up internet connection. For those of you who don’t know what that is, seriously look it up. Yes, that was really us and we thought it was amazing at the time!
Well, every time you ask your puppy to do something, imagine that old-dial up connection kicking into gear. That high pitched symphony of dial up tones, beeps, whistles and static where your computer would be trying to make a connection. That frustrating time delay it took to get anything done. Well, that’s your puppy’s brain and when you’ve got a load of ringing in your ear in a world that is also loud, colourful and distracting, it’s hard for them to process everything perfectly at first.
It’s not really about a puppy being stubborn at all.
It takes time to learn to concentrate on one thing when there are other background distractions doesn’t it? Some people even have to train their brains to be able to block out background noise. I find it really tricky to concentrate on anything if there are noises in the background. So I know how a puppy feels. Because when you are so young, you absolutely haven’t learnt how to filter out background noise yet. A rustling leaf, a dog barking down the road, a distant car engine. The world is a loud place for a puppy. Every noise is just as interesting to them as your voice.
It is unlikely that your puppy is deaf.
A puppy’s brain takes longer to translate things than an adult dog. Again, this is because their brains are so underdeveloped still. Automatic responses have not developed yet and their brains are still ‘buffering’. What is important is that when we are training our puppy a new skill, we don’t consistently repat the cue a number of times. Repeating commands means you are just adding noise to the static!
If you care about your puppy enough to be reading this, then I highly doubt that your puppy dislikes you.
Sometimes, puppies find it difficult to perform a skill because we haven’t actually trained the correct steps for them to do it. Or we have missed steps in the puppy training process. Not because they are being a pain. But because it is not clear to them what we are asking them to do still.
Similarly, if your puppy listens to you in the kitchen but not at the park, it’s usually because they don’t realise that ‘sit’ means the same thing on grass as it does on a kitchen floor tile. They don’t generalise their learning quickly at a young age, which means the skills they know can be performed well in the places we’ve trained it, but not so well when the context changes. In which case, we need to help them learn in new environments.
It is easier to concentrate and listen in a library than it is at a fairground.
With a lot going on around them, your puppy will find listening difficult. Without having taught them what they need to know first, they won’t be able to perform certain skills in harder places and by this I generally mean outdoors. You don’t have your first ever driving lesson on a motorway do you? Similarly for puppies, when we expect them to listen to us outdoors, we need to be sure that they already know how to turn the steering wheel, push the pedals and check the mirrors all a the same time first.
Do they really have selective hearing?
Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, puppies are sentient beings with their own emotions and sometimes they will decide they don’t want to do something. But there is usually a really good reason for that. Sometimes a puppy feels too emotional to even perform a behaviour. They might be worried, scared or they might even be overly excited, meaning that their thinking brain switches off and their instinct brain takes over. They aren’t ignoring you, they literally can’t hear you over their own adrenaline.
So if your pup isn’t listening, and you want to improve their puppy listening skills, don’t get louder or more repetitive. Take a step back, consider why they might not be responding and help them develop their brains in a very busy world. They’re doing their best. They’re just new here!
Happy training xx
Want help with training your puppy? Head to the link below.