Learning Brightness comes after Responding Quickly, and is designed to teach your dog that not all lights are the same. The correct response is to touch the pad that is lit up the brightest. 

There are a total of four stages in Learning Brightness. Like most challenges, it starts out easy. On each stage, the dimmer pad gets a bit brighter, becoming more and more similar to the brightness of the correct pad, but will gradually become trickier to differentiate as your pup progresses. Some of the plays on the last stage can be quite hard, even for people! But don’t worry, your pup doesn’t have to solve every play to move on. 

The request to play is always the bright touchpad, and if you look closely, you'll see that the correct answer on the second touch (the brighter of the two) is always a different touchpad than the request location.

Oreo the Australian Shepherd mix totally has it down already! While distracted by the dim touchpad for a moment, he goes for the brighter pad and earns his reward. 

It can take dogs a while to reach this level of expertise, though, and even a dim pad on the very first stage can be tricky to learn! The buttons can feel deceptive. Your pup may be thinking, “Hey, I touched the lit pad!  Why isn’t this working?” 

It’s not uncommon for dogs to get a bit worked up in the beginning of this challenge. We encourage you to work through it with your dog. It’s like like starting a new sport — when getting started it can be a bit challenging, but overcoming it can provide a sense of earned mastery. You may consider giving your dog a break, and giving them access to free food before they come back for more. You may start by encouraging your dog by pointing and using verbal commands (but avoid pressing the buttons yourself!). 

We see a lot of variation on how long it takes dogs to move through this challenge, ranging from a few days to over a month.

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