Does your puppy know his name? Does he respond immediately when you call him? If he doesn’t, try training him this easy and fun exercise, and in no time you will have him responding to you immediately each time he hears the sound of his own name.
The usefulness of teaching your puppy to respond positively and immediately to the sound of his name is obvious; for example, training him other basic commands, such as to sit, stay, or lie down will be much easier if he has his attention upon you, and not on other things.
Teaching your puppy to respond to his name should be one of the very first lessons he learns, however in reality many owners fail to do this effectively early on, and as a consequence problems often develop. The analogy I would use would be learning to drive; you need to learn to drive forwards, before learning to drive backwards, learning to drive backwards, requires a bit more skill, and you need to learn the basics, before you can confidently move on.
By taking advantage of your puppy’s natural exuberance, and curiosity, it will make teaching him this exercise a piece of cake!
When you are teaching your puppy this exercise, please try and always remember to teach your puppy to associate this sound with good things only. Don’t scold your puppy for example, by using his name, as doing this too often will cause him to build a negative association to the sound, or to become confused, due to the tone you use when saying his name, the latter is more likely to get you the response were your puppy moves away from you, rather than towards you.
To train your puppy this exercise, first gather some things together your puppy enjoys as treats; some puppies are more food motivated, whereas, others prefer toys to play with, workout before hand what your puppy likes best. My advice would be to attach a long training lead to your puppy at this point, but only if he is first used to wearing a lead and collar, and take him to a quiet area with zero distractions. Next, lay down on the floor and call his name; call his name in one of those excited kind of ways puppies love to hear, and if he looks in your direction give him a food treat or his toy. The objective of this exercise is to eventually have your puppy look directly into your eyes when you call his name, as you will be certain then that you have his complete attention. To help reinforce this behaviour, put the food treat or toy up to your face when you call his name, and make eye contact with him when he looks towards the food treat or toy.
Timing here, as with any training you are giving your puppy is important; therefore, try to reward him when you have his attention. This may be difficult at first, as a puppy’s movements can be quite erratic, and on occasions you may reward him at the wrong times, but stick with it and you will improve your timing, and you can put this skill to good use when training your puppy new behaviours.
The next step you need to take is to ‘proof’ your puppy’s behaviour. By proofing your puppy’s behaviour you will test his new skills, and hone them, using different environments, and adding distractions, for example, when the house is busy, or taking him to the local park. A thing to remember here is when you change the environment in which you are reinforcing your puppy’s skills, you may encounter some problems initially; for example, he may not be as motivated to look at you when you call his name as much as he was when you trained him this behaviour in the house. Try to remember, he is not being wilful, the new environment along with its added distractions will divert your puppy’s attention from you, to help counter this, remain patient, and build his concentration gradually again, try not feeding him before you give him session, and using small tasty food treats, such as sausage, meat, or cheese, as a reward for his correct responses.
To recap then, only use your puppy’s name along with a positive tone. Never punish, or scold your puppy while using his name. Begin training your puppy this exercise in an environment with no distractions, and build in distractions slowly. Keep your session’s short, say for example, no longer that five minutes, and spread them out throughout the day. Give your puppy plenty and plenty of praise for his correct responses, and remember to keep things fun for him, and last of all, always end on a positive note, in this way, your puppy will look forward to his fun and rewarding sessions with you.
Ivan Ojounru has been training dogs since the late 1980?s. He now live in France, were continues to train dogs, and also write about dog behaviour, care, and training related topics. If you would like free further information, please visit: http://www.dogtrainingcareadvice.blogspot.com
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