Hey everyone! Welcome to another blogpost. I'm so happy that we're able to get down to some great training habits for you and your puppy to start working on over the summer! Now many of you that have gotten a puppy from us already have gone over some of this basic training. However those of you have are still waiting for a puppy or haven't adopted a Golden specifically from us, this information is going to be a great set of skills for you to learn, so let's get started.

So today we're going to be talking about the basics of Attention Training. Now despite the way that the name sounds and the results one often gets from employing this form of training. This type of training has very little to do with posture or form, and everything to do with the bond and priority of the puppy parent or family.
 

"Attention Training?"

If you're asking this question and are a little puzzled about what I'm talking about. That's okay, this attention at it's core is super simple and doesn't require you to have built up some other arsenal of tricks or behaviors. Although, Manding and Clicker Training a good foundation block to have already built. But if not? That's okay, you can take the principles you learn here and use them to even train a full grown dog. They're simple and quick, training sessions taking anywhere from five to ten minutes.

 

So an important thing for a puppy is to know what it is that you want, the behavior that they need to display to have a harmonious life with you. Which in principle sounds super easy, which it is, but the way we humans communicate and puppies communicate are two totally different things! While deadlines, mistakes, and similar pressures are fantastic motivators for a lot of us humans. Puppies learn best by repetitive affirmative behavior. Which in summary means that you need to draw out good behavior and reward it frequently until it's natural for them to follow.

So applying this principal, we're going to focus on teaching the puppy what to do in distracting environments.

See what we're doing here? Distraction is the opposite of Attention, and we want to highlight the attention part. Now there's a few ways to bring out the attention part. The first part is to find out what motivates your dog the most. Some really love fetch, while others are foodies like myself, and the rest are probably just in love with you and want only a belly rub.

Once we've gotten our motivator, we want to put them in circumstances where they'll look towards us to get this reward, and reward them. Then slowly, add more and more distractions, rewarding them when they ignore what's around them and look at us.

How? Let's take fetch for example. Some dogs that are very dog motivated look at the ball with such intensity that you would think that this ball was all there was in the world for that dog. For us, we want the puppy to look at us the same way. Fortunately with some treats and some practice, we can replicate the same idea.

"The greatest give you can give anyone is undivided attention...
Will Schwalbe

Alright, it's time to get down to the meat of things on how to actual do the training. So first you want to find a relatively small distraction free zone. Let your puppy or dog mill around and do their thing, however everytime they look at you, give them a treat! If you have a clicker, use this to reinforce immediate behavior.

Do this for about one, maybe two training sessions. One the next consecutive session, have someone else nearby bang something together. Maybe a pot and pan. And at a distance. Your dog or puppy will look away at first, that's okay. But as soon as they look back at you reinforce heavily with treats & praise! Doing this repeatedly with harder and harder distractions will help build an instinct in the dog to look to you for direction anytime something distracting and unknown pops up!

Of course nothing beats real world training. So after a few more training session, move to a more busy area with real world circumstances. Say your backyard or frontyard. Have them on a leash and again allow them to mosey around for a bit especially if their young. Smelling new sounds is just as important! Anytime something happens, say a car drives by or something startles the puppy. Reward them instantly upon their gaze falling upon you.

If you puppy is a little older, say 6 months or later and you've done a couple of training sessions. Feel free to take them to a park and implement this kind of training as well! This type of training pairs well with leash training, something we'll cover more in depth in the future.

Well that’s all I’ve got for you for now! The next time we talk, we'll be talking about litter training and other fun dodo tips.