The origin of the phrase you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Answer 1

It means that it is hard for someone who has been doing something one way for a long time to do it a new way. Like someone who writes right handed try to write left handed.

how do you know i can't?

Of course you can teach a dog new tricks - if it is a smart enough dog. ANY trick you teach a dog is a new trick. To the dog!

Some people say you can't teach an OLD dog new tricks, But again, that depends on the brain power of the dog. It can be hard for any dog to learn a new routine, though, something different from a pattern already established. Like, if you move, and the dog is supposed to sleep in a different area of the house or something: that might be hard for most dogs, old or not, to adjust to.

i think it would be more of a challenge to teach any dog an old trick.

Answer 2

this means that an "old dog" is someone who is used to the older fashioned views and ways of people and would not accept newer ideas or understand newer concepts as easily as someone born in a generation with these advances

Answer 3

It came from Dictionary of Proverbs by Nathan Bailey (1917).