Why do dogs have a hard time understanding what we want them to do?

We teach obedience, tell them “no,” “eh eh", and “good,” but they still counter-surf, disrespect us, don't listen to commands, and want to kill the mailman.

 While humans think in ideas, dogs think in impressions. When an impression comes into their minds, they remember many other similar impressions of past experiences before forming their judgments.

For example, if the dog sees the shape or a picture of a dog on a TV screen the dog cannot understand the TV is an appliance. He sees a window and through that window, he sees a dog. 

What’s the difference between humans and dogs when it comes to conditioning and learning?

A child under the age of five and a dog perceive their environments in the same way. 

A simple definition of learning is a change in behavior resulting from experience.  In evolutionary terms, learning is an adaptive change in behavior that results from experience. Some behavioral changes (walking, communication, sexual behavior) require biological development (maturation) as well as experience, 

There are both simple and complex learning behaviors.  Habitation, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning are all considered simple learning. More complex learning includes the ability to communicate, learn social rules, and abiding by family codes of conduct, to name just a few. 

Dogs can remember complex events in a fraction of a second, but don’t have the capacity to predict an event.  Therefore, if we want to educate a dog, we need to change the way we offer them information. 

Dogs don’t parent their puppies with lectures or punishment, but with a series of emotional consequences associated with impressions perceived from the environment. Their lives are presented with comprehensive impressions, so they can remember as much as possible when dealing with any situation.

When a dog grows up and reaches maturity, he can remember, no matter what he has to do, that something similar has been imprinted on him in the past from his authority/guardian/instructor. He "sees in memory imprints" (like emotionally-charged pictures) how to act when the new event resembles something already experienced. When new conditions arise, the dog finds himself compelled to experiment and learn from impressions and new consequences. 

For this reason, dogs are compelled to be in didactic and secure attachment relationships. They learn by observing how their mentor solves his problems and deals with their environment. 

This emotional and impressionistic system of education gives a dog a strong uniformity to his entire life. Things are done repeatedly in exactly the same way over very long periods of time. They become emotional rituals. In that process, there is no anxiety about the future, as the next event depends on the last event.  A dog does what he had always seen done before; he does not think, he remembers. 

He remembers that you took a sip of coffee, grabbed your phone, and fixed your hair the day after the long snuggle-day on the couch.  The last sip of coffee, a push into the crate, a quick look back.  Now he knows you will be gone all day and come back empty-handed! 

How do dogs perceive their leader?

In a canine social hierarchy, authority is not based on who has more power or strength but rather, who has the most experience in his life and therefore, remember the most. 

A dog that has not reached a certain maturity will never be seen as an authority figure or leader, nor be able to decide on anything important. Confidence is placed only in the pack member that can remember many instances of surviving and thriving. However, if a dog has experience in a specific field, this takes precedence over the older-and-wiser dog. The canine social model allows the most experienced in any particular situation to take the lead and the entire group learns from the consequences. 

How does a dog see you in this?

48,000 years or more ago, dogs entered emotional relationships with humans.  This establishes a historical understanding of their relationship dynamics.   In the present day, humans have the advantage over dogs by possessing a logical understanding and an aptitude for combination.  On the other hand, humans have lost their total recall abilities. We now think in ideas while dogs think in pictures.  The gift of intellectual memory is influential on the relationship only in its earliest beginnings, and even so much does not appear to be true until a critical mass of "thinking dogs" might shift the species into a Canis-Familiaris-Intelectus.

From my observation and looking into studies, I recognized that since the 1980s some dogs have shown a shift in the way they process information in order to be able to communicate with humans. They have had to start remembering words and time which causes a lot of stress and discomfort in a human/dog relationship.  

How do dogs perceive our social environment?

The way we perceive dog-socialization is based on logical reasoning, which is fundamentally incorrect. 

Your dog cannot understand why you ask him to sit in a fearful situation when he’s instinctively driven to fight or escape. 

We still wonder why the dog sees us leaving and knowing that we are at work, if we return empty-handed, we seem not successful in our hunt. 

Dogs don't understand why he has to be friends with a relative if the person does not live in our home and does not know the rituals? For the dog that relative is a stranger, regardless of your family relationship status.

Why is the mailman who has his own ritual and disrespectfully enters our property, violates social rules and gets away with it? And don't get me started with the delivery guys! 

We have so many things to remember from our old relationship with dogs. 

What Do You Remember? ( I mean think about this?)