While exercising Amber on stairs climbing, I took the chance to end the remaining 5 minutes with a "Wait" command.
Amber was asked to wait at the starting point of a set of stairs, I walked 2 sets down so that she can't see me, and then I called out to her name to come over, didn't see her coming. As I walked up to take a look, she disappeared, I then knew that she walked up the stairs instead of coming down to me, I called as I approached and there were sounds of hurrying, after a few seconds Amber came back. I tried the second time and it was exactly the same thing, I didn't correct her as there was something weird about this, from my experience it isn't the typical rebellious behavior that most people would assume, she was panicking.
On the last try, I did the same thing but slowly walked up the stairs and peep her at the same time, as expected she was actually waiting for her name to be called (if a dog wishes to run off it would've started to do so once the person is out of sight), I then called her name while watching her from a corner, she ran upwards again. And then I remembered an event when she was about 7 months old, it was at a different estate but we were walking down the stairs, as I saw Amber running down too fast which was almost out of my sight, I called out to her name, she started to run even further.
From these scenarios, I am concluding that Amber was not able to differentiate exactly where my voice came from, this is very interesting because dogs are supposed to be able to pick up the direction of a sound much better than humans. Because this only happens at the stairs, I believe that the area creates echoes, thus sound may seem to come from many sides, also the repetition of the environment (stairs) may have confused her.
On Amber's part, she is a dog that does things based on sight first, then hearing and smell. With the environment that she was in, her sight was blinded by the repetitive environment, and sound was echoed, thus she started panicking when she couldn't find me, other than these issues, her state of mind could've also affected her in other ways, maybe she was too tired after the walk, these may also contribute to her decision, after all we know that Amber could've just memorized which direction I walked towards and simply follow from there.
With this, we can understand her limitation and try to improve from there, probably food with strong smells will help her with the training. The 3 major senses - smelling, hearing and eyesight of a dog is very important, to make sure it is able to think and react correctly to a situation will depend on these 3 senses. if we can strengthen Amber's nose further, she would be able to get over this obstacle with no trouble.
Amber was asked to wait at the starting point of a set of stairs, I walked 2 sets down so that she can't see me, and then I called out to her name to come over, didn't see her coming. As I walked up to take a look, she disappeared, I then knew that she walked up the stairs instead of coming down to me, I called as I approached and there were sounds of hurrying, after a few seconds Amber came back. I tried the second time and it was exactly the same thing, I didn't correct her as there was something weird about this, from my experience it isn't the typical rebellious behavior that most people would assume, she was panicking.
On the last try, I did the same thing but slowly walked up the stairs and peep her at the same time, as expected she was actually waiting for her name to be called (if a dog wishes to run off it would've started to do so once the person is out of sight), I then called her name while watching her from a corner, she ran upwards again. And then I remembered an event when she was about 7 months old, it was at a different estate but we were walking down the stairs, as I saw Amber running down too fast which was almost out of my sight, I called out to her name, she started to run even further.
From these scenarios, I am concluding that Amber was not able to differentiate exactly where my voice came from, this is very interesting because dogs are supposed to be able to pick up the direction of a sound much better than humans. Because this only happens at the stairs, I believe that the area creates echoes, thus sound may seem to come from many sides, also the repetition of the environment (stairs) may have confused her.
On Amber's part, she is a dog that does things based on sight first, then hearing and smell. With the environment that she was in, her sight was blinded by the repetitive environment, and sound was echoed, thus she started panicking when she couldn't find me, other than these issues, her state of mind could've also affected her in other ways, maybe she was too tired after the walk, these may also contribute to her decision, after all we know that Amber could've just memorized which direction I walked towards and simply follow from there.
With this, we can understand her limitation and try to improve from there, probably food with strong smells will help her with the training. The 3 major senses - smelling, hearing and eyesight of a dog is very important, to make sure it is able to think and react correctly to a situation will depend on these 3 senses. if we can strengthen Amber's nose further, she would be able to get over this obstacle with no trouble.
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