Puppy Ignores Me

Hi Anasnow,

Congratulations on your new puppy! He sounds like a smart one, already knowing some commands.

However, the reason why he doesn't always respond is one of the two reasons:

1) he hasn't totally mastered those commands
2) there is not enough motivation for him to respond to your commands

Therefore, you will need to working on him using positive markers and rewards. Have you been giving him a praise and a treat every time he does what you ask him to do? You need to keep doing this until he follows your commands 100%. Then, you can start giving treats randomly, but always give him a positive marker (Yes! or Good boy!) so that he would know he is doing a good job.

To get his attention is also done by showing a treat. You can say "Watch me" and bring a treat between your eyes. When he follows the treat and give you an eye contact, say "Yes!" and give him the treat.

When you call him by his name or by saying "Come" or both and he comes to you, give him a treat. Don't eliminate treats for "Come" command so that he will learn that he gets a treat every time he comes to you when called. This will help you a lot later on since he will be learning perfect recalls

Make your training short and fun. Puppies don't have a long attention span so he gets bored or loses focus when it gets longer than 5 minutes.

Good luck