# Training Regressions



## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

We sometimes wonder Why Why Why . He/She knows better. Love this answer by Jean Donaldson. 
"Training Regressions By Jean Donaldson
People are terribly mystified by any change in their dog's behavior and go on
a lot with the "why? WHY?" as though there should never be any variability
whatsoever in this living organism's behavior. Training regressions are a
frequent occurrence and no big deal. It is so important to remember that
behavior is always in flux, constantly subjected to whatever contingencies
there are in the environment as well as being influenced by unknown internal
events. In the case of behavior problems, there are three main reasons for
behavior that had seemed to be "fixed" to break down again:
1. Undertraining: the behavior was never that strong in the first place
2. Contingency change: the behavior extinguished or another one was trained
by the owner or environment
3. Failure to generalize: the behavior falls apart in a new location or context
(Karen Pryor's "New Tank Syndrome")
These three reasons are really variations on the same theme, undertraining. It
is extremely difficult in a real-life setting to reinforce enough trials to get the
response strength most people expect (i.e., perfection for life). It is also hard
to keep on top of changing circumstances to maintain training and get
responses generalized across new contexts.


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