Lessons from Winston: Cues & Context

Winston was a rescue bullmastiff mix from the Animal Welfare League Hawkesbury Valley Branch. My inspiration to learn how to train dogs, the reason we moved to this property, my teacher, my partner and my bubba-boy. Handsome until the very end. Our lives revolved around him for 13 years. He passed peacefully at home on Saturday 17th April 2021 at approximately midday.

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Winston has been front of mind recently, I guess as I have read of more losses and also as Roxy ages… His lessons and examples are mentioned to most, if not all, clients and puppy school attendees. This lesson was missed in the few I captured as blogs not long after he passed. It is apt for “Body Language/Communications month” (May 2024) so here it is: Cues & Context.

Cues are signals and take many forms. In training, I call the specific behaviours and positions we ask for verbal cues. We train to get behaviours on cues, so we can ask for them. We give our dogs a vocabulary so they both have reason to listen to what we’re asking, but also so we can facilitate behaviours in context – creating a dog that thinks and can be better trusted at liberty. There’s some cues that are pretty universally understood and taught, like “sit”, but especially for dogs we have to live with it is important the cues are meaningful to us.

The words themselves don’t matter, dogs don’t speak English (or other languages). You could make almost any sound mean something; as I often say you could call it “banana” if you want. It just needs to be associated with the behaviour you want in a way that works for the dog. Then we consistently practise in multiple contexts (places, weathers, moods, etc) so the dog can learn that word means that behaviour regardless of what else is going on (please).

Context is important, especially in households with multiple people, and this is where the lesson from Winston comes in. Unbeknownst to each other, both Deano & I had taught Winston a behaviour but used different verbal cues.

Winston had a habit of laying in doorways and hallways – my guess was a kind of ploy to know if we were going into a certain room. Of course, if you tried to step over him, even if he seemed asleep, he would sit up at exactly the moment to cause you to fall over, either by you trying to avoid stepping on him or because his size would literally just knock you down. So I taught him “excuse me”, a cue to please just move from where you are, while Deano taught the same behaviour as “move”. It went on for months. He was getting really good at “excuse me” in all sorts of contexts, and it turned out was similarly good at “move” as well. Until the day we were all home together. Winston was laying blocking the hallway and Deano needed to go that way, and asked him to “move”. He looked at me, almost as if to shrug that he didn’t know what was meant. It took me a sec, but when I realised I smugly asked “excuse me”, to the same response. Winston’s response to our incredulity was appeasement, so he started offering all sorts of other behaviours, staying right in the way as he did his performance.

The context to Winston had changed enough that he didn’t understand the cues. We had to work to reset to a single cue, “move” and proof it again. No problem.

So learn from Winston:

1. For clarity, collaborate with your household on cues if you’re all going to need the behaviour, and be consistent (you can have separate cues for certain people or contexts if needed, as long as you still proof them accordingly)
2. Small things can change the context from the dog’s point of view, including the presence of another person, so think about this when proofing