"You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks."

Saturday Proverb:

Proverb: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Meaning: 

It's challenging to teach a person something new, usually because that person has been doing what they do for so long that learning how to do it differently is hard.

History / Interesting Fact:

Even though this phrase claims “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”  - you actually can teach an old dog new tricks. Some may find it more difficult to teach an older dog in comparison to a younger one however it is still possible for a dog to learn tricks - young or old.

This idea of it being more difficult to teach things to an older dog has been around since at least the early 1500’s.

An example can be found in Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry of 1534.

Another example of the phrase that people are familiar with today is written in the book Divers Proverbs by Nathan Baily in 1721. The wording is slightly different yet it is still very similar to the modern expression:

"An old Dog will learn no Tricks."