“He knows it, he’s just being stubborn” is one of the most common things owners say, and it is almost always wrong.
Dogs generalise poorly. A behaviour learned in one place, with one person, in one body position, is genuinely a different exercise when any of those change. To your dog, “sit” in the kitchen and “sit” outside the vet’s are not obviously the same request.
The process of teaching them that it is the same request is called proofing, and it is the difference between a dog who knows a cue and a dog who performs it when it matters.
The three Ds
Duration — how long the behaviour is held.
Distance — how far you are from the dog.
Distraction — what else is happening.
Raise one, drop the other two. This is the whole method, and the most common mistake is raising all three at once — asking for a thirty-second stay while walking away as a jogger passes.
The dimensions people forget
Beyond the three Ds, all of these change the picture for a dog:
Location. Every room, the garden, the pavement, the park, a car park, a friend’s house, the vet’s waiting room.
Your body position. Most dogs only know cues from a person standing directly in front of them, leaning slightly forward. Try cueing from a chair, lying on the sofa, with your back turned, while walking, or from another room. Many dogs fail entirely.
Who is asking. Dogs learn the person as part of the picture. Have everyone in the household practise.
Surface. A dog who will not sit on wet grass or gravel is not being difficult — many genuinely dislike it, and some have a physical reason.
Your clothing. Coats, hats, sunglasses and hoods change your outline enough to matter for some dogs.
Time of day and light level.
What you are holding — a shopping bag, a phone, a pram, another dog’s lead.
Whether food is visible. A dog who only responds when they can see a treat was over-lured and the lure was never faded.
The proofing plan
For any cue you actually care about:
1. Fluency at home, with no distractions. The dog responds immediately, every time, with no lure.
2. Change one thing. Same room, but you are sitting down. Ten repetitions.
3. Change another thing. Different room. Ten repetitions.
4. Add mild distraction at home — a toy on the floor, someone walking past.
5. Move outside, and drop everything back to easy. First repetition in a new place should be the simplest possible version.
6. Build up in that location, then move to a slightly harder one.
7. Repeat across five or six locations. This is the point at which most dogs generalise the concept rather than the context — after that, new places are easy.
Environments in order of difficulty
Work up, and do not skip:
- Home, quiet
- Home with mild distraction
- Garden
- Quiet street
- Quiet park at an empty hour
- Park with people at distance
- Park with dogs at distance
- Busy pavement
- Outside a shop
- Near dogs, close
Most people go from step three to step nine and conclude their dog is being wilful.
Raise the pay when you raise the difficulty
A cue in the kitchen can be paid with kibble. The same cue in a park, with dogs nearby, cannot.
Match the value of the reward to the difficulty of the environment. Roast chicken exists for exactly this.
What to do when they fail
Do not repeat the cue. Saying it three times teaches the dog that the third one is the real one.
Do not get cross. The dog has told you the exercise was too hard, which is useful information.
Make the next repetition easier — more distance from the distraction, less duration, closer to you.
Get three easy wins, then stop.
A dog failing repeatedly is learning that the cue is optional. A dog succeeding repeatedly is learning that it always works.
The cues worth proofing properly
You do not need a proofed “shake paw”. You do need:
- Recall, in every environment you will ever use it
- Leave it, because it is a safety cue
- A settle or mat cue, in cafés, at the vet’s, in other people’s houses
- A threshold wait, at every door, gate and car boot
- Loose lead walking, wherever you actually walk
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Dog Training Lead 30ft Long Line
The tool that makes proofing recall possible — real freedom for the dog, no possibility of rehearsing failure. Attach it to a harness and let it trail rather than holding it taut.
Dog Training Clicker
Useful when proofing because the marker sounds identical regardless of how tense or exasperated you feel — which matters most in exactly the difficult environments where proofing happens.
How long it takes
The first new location is slow. The second takes half as long. By the fifth or sixth, most dogs have generalised the concept and new places are quick.
That is the encouraging part: proofing is front-loaded. The work is in the first few environments, and then it gets easy.
The reframe worth adopting
When your dog does not respond outside, the useful question is not “why is he ignoring me” but “what is different about this picture, and how do I make it easier”.
That single change in framing fixes more training problems than any technique, because it turns a discipline issue into a solvable one.
