How did my dog learn something I didn't teach her?

My husband and I have a 10-11 month old puppy. At about 7 months she learned to come to a whistle randomly. Now she learned to scratch at the door when she wants to go outside. How?How did my dog learn something I didn't teach her?
Well the scratching is instinct but, if she did it once and it worked (because someone let her in) now she knows that's the trick to getting in. lol. If you reward a bad behavior by doing what they want, they will think there doing the right thing. I think the whistling is probably the same, one time someone whistled, the sound excited her so she came to them to see about it and they petted her. Therefore, she thinks ';I hear whistle, I go to the person, they pet me'; lolHow did my dog learn something I didn't teach her?
Dogs are smart. She might have seen you doing something and figured out a way to do it herself, or she tried something once and got the desired result, and so kept doing it. My dog used to scratch at the door to be let back in, and if we didn't come after a few minutes she'd bark once, wait to see if someone was coming, bark again, wait, etc. If no one came she'd go around to the back door and repeat the process.
They figure they need to let you know somehow and she probably did it once to try to get out and you came a running so she's learned that scratching gets your attention. My dog at 5 months old learned to push the window blinds string that hangs down has plastic knobs on the end she would push them with her nose against the glass so they would tap and that alerted me that she had to potty and I would get up and take her outside. There's a downside to that trick too, once they learn that you'll let them out they do it every 20 minutes.
As far as scratching to go outside she probably didn't understand how to communicate with you when she was being potty trained until now. If dogs don't have an older dog to show them they are often confused and yelling and spanking doesn't help because then they just try to be sneaky about it so that they don't get caught. She experimented and found a way of communicating that worked it just took her a little while longer to figure it out. As far as responding to a whistle dogs instinctively respond to high pitch noises and calls she may have just been curious the first couple of times and ran over to investigate but by giving her positive feedback you made the behavior permanent (which in this case is good).
They can pick up a lot of things without being specifically trained to do it. As well as picking up bad behaviors. They do what works for them.





I take it you trained her to potty outside. She knew to go out there but had to figure out how to get your attention for you to open that door. When pawing at the door worked then she remembered it. In fact, I think she trained you to open the door on command.





Whistles are a typical attention getter. It's a distinctive sound that differs from your usual voice so they notice that sound then notice you.
More than likely another dog around her was doing it and that dog got a treat and she wanted one as well. I rescue dogs and this is a very common way for dog to learn especially if it is younger around 2 and younger in age and really food/treat oriented with training.
dogs are smart they have ways of telling us what they want like picking up there lead when they want a walk or scratching the door when they want in/out.


my dog learned how to open the door so don't worry they work it out on their own
Two reasons - repetition %26amp; there is a pay off to the behaviour, therefore, it gets repeated.
She knows she needs to go pee! Every dog i have had LOVES or LOVED to scratch on our door! Maybe your dog is smart but u didn't know just yet
Dogs don't have to see something to learn learn it. It could be instinct.
same is my dog!
smart dog
I have NO idea what a Chiuahuah is?