OMG my Duchess is the smartest yorkie in the whole wide world
 

Not that I am bias or anything like that.:p

Okay to help relieve bordem in the winter months, I've been training her on new commands.

She learn to sit in less than 50 minutes. 3 ten minute sessions. I taugh her down and she picked it up in 20 minutes. Now we are working on high-five commands and she is gradually picking that up. I'm not even a trainer but she loves her boiled chicken and she will move mountains to get her chicken. She makes me look better than the dog whisperer.:p

She even knows how to play football. When I say hike she takes off running. She's an awesome running back.:p I see a million dollar contract in her future.

Good for you and Duchess! Training a dog is so much fun and they just eat it up!

New Yorkie Daddy here (well almost).

Anyway, I have been reading here and looking at alot of you tube on yorkies.

Are they really this easy to train?

Almost forgot WOW nice job!!!!!

Everyday I learn something new about her. But now that I how intelligent she is, I plan on enrolling her in some classes. I was thinking agility classes or something like that. Now if I can just get her to stop going all Cujo when she sees another dog.

The two yorkies I had picked up things rather quickly. Both of them were highly motivated by treats. They are intelligent but some of them are just a lot more stubborn than others.

Yorkies are very smart dogs and they get their bad rep as being hard to train by people who are lazy to train them. If they aren't stimulated they will act out.

The easiest way to train them is to remember to lead their nose with a treat. Where their head moves the body will follow. This is the easy way to teach roll over. After they get "lay down" put the treat over their shoulder and have their head slowly follow until they have to roll over to get it.

And since Duchess knows how to play football, how about basketball? You can get a little hoop in the Nerf section of the toy store. Uni loves basketball.

Do you really think toy dogs are stubborn or that toy dogs with much smaller brains don't have enough brain space in their tiny heads to dedicate to learning so have to have more repetition to effectively communicate to them what we want or expect? What would motivate dogs to be stubborn when they get a treat and us very happy with them once they do the trick or perform the command? Dogs are all about instant gratification so how does holding out doing something we want instantly gratify them? How does stubborn get them anything they want and why would they stick to it and forego a treat? I think toy dogs like Yorkies, toy poodles, Maltese, etc., just don't quite have all the ready brain power of larger dogs and just require more repetition to imprint the trick/command on their brains and get them to understand that we want them to do that trick again and again, which they seem to have problems understanding the need for. But once they get it there, they are quick to do it again and again when they get positive reinforcement and happy results from us. Later, just our pride in them and the bond we have motivates them.

Yikes! Haha!!! I didn't mean to rant on your thread or at you but am just trying to make a point on this public forum where many might read this thread. I certainly don't mean to pick on you! I, too, have used the term stubborn to describe a small dog's inability to learn a new trick quickly but having thought a lot about it since, I just wonder if we are too quick to brand our toy terriers, especially, with that term, dogs who honestly seem to want to learn once they are motivated and get the idea of what we want - I just think they are hampered by smaller, less effective brains than dogs seven, eight times their size; and once we accept that and deal with it, we train our toy dogs with more understanding, patience and love. Yorkies are very, very smart dogs once they understand what we are trying to communicate to them and no other dog can outwork them!

I should rephrase to describe stubborn to my Brandi. She had what I called selective learning.:rolleyes: The reason I know she was stubborn or just being willfull because when I would say a command she literally do it when she felt like it when there were no treats being offered. That's how I know that I am not a good trainer.

At some point I wouldn't use the treats and I would tell her to sit without the treats and depending on if she was in the mood she would sit. And then when she did sit, it was almost like "okay I'll do it but I really don't want too" and when she finally sat, it was only like for a few seconds. I would tell her to sit just so I could have a laugh. She was too funny. If I had treats, she would sit every single time.:p If that ain't being stubborn I know what is.

But Dutch will sit every time with or without treats.

Congrats on all your progress. When we met Gina for the first time we could see the gears in her head moving very very fast. We've had Gina in classes for a year and a half, though she doesn't need them anymore, she loves the socialization, and showing off what she can do. Gina is by far far the smartest dog I've ever had, and I've had some smart ones including my last Yorkie, Megan. Gina has passed every class from puppy to advanced 2 and passed the Canine Good Citizenship test, ad she can be stubborn when told to do something without a treat, but I just tell her wrong and give the command again. Wrong is also very useful for begining training, it lets them know that they didn't do the right command. Good luck with your further training, and I would suggest getting her in some classes, the solization will do her a lot og good.
Cheers Quad & Gina:aimeeyork

Oh, that's not a stubborn dog, just an unmotivated one. I'll betcha she knows you aren't expecting her to do it every time! Each dog requires different motivations and triggers and you might have the one dog that is different from all the others but, still, you have to make your dog love and want to do the commands because it's loads of fun and they want to get their rewards of treat, prize, their and your pride in their great accomplishment, whatever - ASAP. Make the training lots more fun, upbeat for her, the rewards ultra fast and she'll happily perform every trick every time - within reason, as long as she thinks you are in it with her and really, really want to see her do it. She needs to feel your excitement, sense of fun and determination to be sure she's fully motivated and that you two get through the trick successfully together - that's what makes a really good dog trainer. You are a vital part of it. Amp yourself up and motivate her! No dog likes trick/command repeats unless they are made really worth it to him or her and sense we are with them 100% of the way! Kind of like the 100th sit-up, second set, is pretty dang hard to get to unless you are powerfully motivated and some people can't get there consistently without a professional trainer to motivate them.

The term "stubborn" as it pertains to the learning ability or obedience of any dog correlates with their intellect. In other words, the more "stubborn" a dog is, the more intelligent it is thought to be. This is why treat motivation is not enough sometimes and it is also why Afghan hounds, for example, are known for their stubbornness. It is known that they are highly intelligent dogs but, obviously, not toy. Therefore, stubbornness in any dog breed is not due to lack of brain power, rather, it is the very opposite.


Brain size does not = intelligence. Otherwise, human intelligence would average in line with the mean size for our brains (around 4lbs). We know that intelligence varies but the size of human brains do not vary much.

As a neurology researcher, I just couldn't pass this comment up! It is interesting to see how some of our perceptions come about!

I don't know about the brain size and all of that stuff. I just used the word stubborn more out of a term of endearment. Whether it is technically correct, I will leave up to those who are infinitely more intelligent than me.

I am actually more excited at being able to train them then them being trained!
For so long they were training me now I am happy to say I have taken my rightful position as leader of the pack finally. :D

Brain size aside, I think you are amazing for training your babies! Any training can only be good for them as, due to their intellect, they thrive on mental stimulation. Good for you. Let me know when you're free and you can train me and my Teddy :)

Maybe I expressed myself badly or you are over-thinking this concept and you know, learning doesn't always equal intelligence. But have you ever noticed how quickly all big dogs learn a trick/command while toy dogs take far, far longer, in most cases? I can train a large dog in half the time it takes to train a toy dog. It's got to be the size of learning structure within in the brain - just not as many neurons, neurotransmitters and synapses, etc., dedicated to learning in the brain of the small dog as in larger dog because little dogs have less over all brain space to dedicate to learning, need more for basic survival, perhaps, and never needed to work much as big dogs did over the centuries, so their little brains haven't selectively evolved in brain learning structure yet. Seems to me they are just limited by less learning ability of the brain over the big dog, not stubbornness.

I've never personally trained an Afghan hound so I cannot speak to that breed but perhaps, as they have relatively small heads to their overall body size, they have a similar deceased learning brain structure as little dogs do, just need more motivation/repetition to learn. That's just as possible as them being stubborn. What's in it for the dog to be stubborn and forego his treat and praise? They are all about instant gratification and fun when it's there to be had. Trouble is, so many trainers do it with little gusto or effort and as if the dog were in the military, grinding out commands.

Your experience and perceptions are valid, so I cannot argue those and have no desire to contradict those apart from to say that science does not back up the causation you have attributed to your experiences. The bolded section of your text does suggest that your expectations are going someway towards the success of training when comparing big dogs to little dogs. Our expectations for any event will impact the outcome as all sentient beings, human or animal, are not "passive" agents of learning but active and transactional. In other words, animals do not just soak up learning and we do not just instruct learning. We affect each other by the our expectations, communications, personalities etc and this has no relation to the size of the brain. The brain structure is not relative to learning ability for individuals within the same species with the exception of structural damage or compromised integrity.


In answer to your question re: trainability with dogs, I have found the opposite experience. I have found larger dogs much harder to train beyond basic commands but again, could this be down to my own bias towards smaller breeds? Could be?


Learning does not = intelligence but the willingness to learn through acknowledgement of error does = intelligence. For example, big dogs are happy for a piece of cheese to do as their told but a little dog may weight the pros and cons of a treat ie. does this treat outweigh the discomfort (awareness of this possibility from past experience??) that may follow? The ability to think beyond immediate gratification is a sign of intelligence.


Finally, I can overthink nothing. I am very tired as my metabolism is increasing faster than my biological age and I can rarely stay up and think coherently past 9 p.m. Sadly, my clock shows the time as 9:03 p.m.!

I meant to add above that there is always danger in making generalizations but we have evolved to do so because it is quick and easy and is very useful in times of danger i.e. all snakes are dangerous - run! But, we know that not ALL snakes are dangerous and we need not run from every snake to save our lives. Therefore, it is worth thinking about issues beyond our immediate dispositions even though that means fighting with evolution.


I am "dog" tired..lol..but wanted to thank you for always providing such thought provoking posts! Your advice re: Teddy's behavior has been invaluable to me and you do so much good on this site with your vast knowledge and experience.


<hugs from a very tired England> xx

First, please explain how science doesn't back up the causation I have attributed to my experiences. Are dog brain cells not even remotely the same size in the toy vs. large breeds?

What I understood from your previous post was that Yorkie's brain size = the reason they are harder to train because their brains are "less effective" etc.


Please correct me if I'm wrong! If, however, my interpretation of your comments are correct, I would have to ask you to consider the suggestion that you are less intelligent than an elephant who has a brain considerably larger than your own (approx. 17lbs) or a blue whale.


If one considers the above, it may be possible to understand why attributing intelligence to brain size doesn't make sense. Having said that, I do understand why you have come to that conclusion i.e. more space = more room for synapses etc. In reality, it just doesn't work that way!


Hope that makes sense. It's very hard to put into a paragraph the hundreds of different things we know about the brain and the trillion other ones we don't! I'm afraid we may have spun the OP's post into a very technical tangent - many apologies!

Again, I'd still like to read how science doesn't back up the causation I have attributed to my experiences.

And you know human brain intelligence is never reliably compared to that of animals, is usually based on the fact that we have more cortex and far more dedicated, developed structures within the brain than other mammals as some reasons why humans have more measurable intelligence than they do, though the other reasons are little understood yet by science. But size is never accurately a true comparison between the human and animal brains, though it is among other animals.

Still, the size of a tiny dog brain compared to a much larger dog's brain, when the cell size is basically the same in both dogs, has got to limit the amount dedicated to learning/retention ability in a small dog. Anyway, the consensus of most dog trainers who keep actual training records and measure the amount of times they must repeat a command B4 the dog can reliably repeat it every time, is that large dogs train more easily with fewer repetitions and get it right on first command to a far greater degree. With the small dogs, it's about one-third to twice as long to train a small dog with any basic new command and second, third commands are often necessary, though over-generalizing is never good to do with any dog, even Afghans.

There is one study that says larger dog have improved intraocular abilities due to likely greater inter-ocular distances over small dogs and that might be one reason they may learn what humans expect of them more easily and quickly in the exercise studied. And they followed it up by saying large dogs did better on the pointing exercise studied than small dogs.

Physical size matters in the domestic dog's (Canis lupus familiaris) ability to use human pointing cues

So the larger dog has bigger eyes, more developed structures within them that allow him to take in more information due to the physical difference in the length and size of the eyes. Could it be that his brain is also equally larger, more structurally developed and able to perform? It's not all that big a stretch. Note that the last line of that abstract says that researchers need to be careful when making comparisons between breeds to first consider physical differences before assuming any inherent cognitive differences. I agree and don't think small dogs are actually stubborn, just don't have the same learning capacities or plain old physical abilities and often, aren't motivated enough by the trainer. But boy, once they get it, they are off and running!

But to all who train their toy dogs, keep your sessions short, frequent, fun, loving and really motivate your little one to want to do that next command.

https://apdt.com/pet-owners/choosing-a-trainer/myths/

I, too, am sorry, OP, for getting onto this tangent and to Misty, it was a good discussion!!! Sleep well tonight over there in the U.K., girl!!!

Yavenay, that is wonderful that' you've gotten her to do all those tricks & I'm sure it's as satisfying to you as it is to your pup to please you & get treats.

Maybe a video sometime? :)

Awesome! Duchess sounds like a smart girl:D

This place keeps as deep as my car forums... LOL

Thank you for the advice.We have a maltese who only listens to my wife... Kinda of like my kids hmmm Maybe its me.

We pick up the Yorkie on January 30th so I will ensure she is trained and stimulated. Both my daughters play basketball so Kiera is going to also.

That video was just too cute!

There are many, many reasons (flaws) which means that I don't agree with everything above but it is irrelevant to this post. We can start another, if you like, where I can source research etc?



Maybe we should have an intellectual debate forum! I feel there is so much which could be learned by educated discourse!


I am always happy to educate and learn where I can! However, I may be sort of absent for the next 2 weeks as I have a presentation due on Jan 26 which has been delayed due to the holidays.


I am a horrible procrastinator.

I'll try to have one of my friends video us. It definitely it satisfying because I an finally learning how to be a trainer. Actually Dutch is forcing me to become more of a trainer. Because it is so cold outside, Dutch isn't getting her daily walks. She is so bored that I have to find ways to entertain her until it's warm enough to start walking again. She has such a high energy level.

Some of the things I do is hide treats around the house, wrestle, football, hide and seek, fetch and of course her training.

We spell around our Yorkie and if she learns how to spell we are in trouble ;)
Yorkies are smart but VERY unreasonable.

Oh we tried spelling and now Uni knows what "W" means, so now we have to say "dubs" but she still knows. You spell something enough and they will learn.

Max and Teddy know spelling, they know piglatin, Spanish, a few German words, lol.

They can read my mind too. :D

Football sounds adorable. Great job training!

Uni knows a few commands in Viet too thanks to MIL. It's amazing how much they can learn. Kaji is bilingual for sure. I baby sat him a few times and took him to my shop. The majority of my customers were Mexican and I told a lot of the kids that Kaji "speaks" Spanish. They would give him commands and he would totally do them! You know how some dogs will only do commands for their human, well Kaji did them for most of my customers. What a cutie.

I would give you oh, maybe an hour with my Cookie and see what you thought about this theory of their brains.

She is smart AND stubborn...and it is not because I had to accept anything less than that and "deal" with it. It's a total fact! Not going to write a book or try to convince you....just know that I know it. :) You are welcome any time you are in the Houston area to meet her and see for yourself.