Accidental training

Spudlet

Spudlet

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I'm not sure how or when, but Spud has learned that if he steals one slipper sock, the command 'find the other one!' means I want the other half of the set. Well, I know how it developed, but I'm not totally sure how it happened the first time - it's just turned into a thing he knows that I encourage (because it saves me hunting out my slippers). But how he understood it the first time, I have no idea!

Anyone else managed to teach anything by accident?
 
Our young lab has three main toys, a teddy bear, a gunslip and a watering can rose (!). She can go and get any specific one on command, which we didn't mean to teach. She also understands 'sock' and goes and finds some. Can't do pairs though - not as clever as Spud!
 
Giving the command, when it was what the dog was going to do anyway, is often how they learn. Especially with sheepdogs, if the left side or right is a whistle tone or a spoken word, and importantly, if it's given when it was what they were about to do, or were even doing, it reinforces the instruction. We had a very bright lurcher bitch, and (to my disgust!) she had several toys. "Go find your ……..", what ever it was, eventually sank in!

Alec.
 
We taught the whippet to retrieve from water, he swims right out into the lake to fetch now. Not something I would have attempted to teach a dog who wont even go for a wee when its raining or wet outside :lol:
 
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Lol, I like it BC.

In some ways, Spud is quite clever - in other ways, so very, very dim... :D

He has also accidentally taught himself that ponies are electrified, by going to touch noses with one under a strand of fence (which I thought was not live) and getting a belt to the schnozz... Poor Spud! :(
 
Buddy seems to have learnt that 'Go play' on walks means Go away and run around stop mugging me for treats.
That's all the accidental training haha
 
Mine has learned to read the clock on the wall. He does it at various times but the funniest is just before bed - if it is getting late and he wants to go to bed he comes and looks at me, looks at the clock, looks back at me and sighs. If I ignore him he wanders off to the bedroom and comes back, looks at me, sighs, looks at the clock and then wanders back to bed with a huge grumbly sigh and stays there.

If he wants to go for a walk or wants dinner or almost anything else and I am "not listening" to his request then he will sit and stare at the clock too, usually accompanied by the appropriate sigh or grumble (he is very vocal like many deaf dogs)
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