Salience
When we say something is salient to a dog, we mean it has noticeable significance to her. Your dog learns to sit even in the face of distractions because the hotdog you are holding in front of her face is very salient. When we associate the hotdog with the verbal cue Sit, the cue itself becomes significant. The salient stimuli in the environment—you, your hotdogs, and the Sit cue—are more significant than the distractions. They overshadow the dog barking across the street, the skateboarder whizzing by on the road, the slamming of a car door down the block. If your dog is too distracted to respond to the Sit cue, then the distractions are more salient than you and your hotdogs. You either need to move your training to a less distracting environment, or find a way to make you, your treats, and your cues more significant to your dog.
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