Teach Your Dog Its Name
| Difficulty: | Easy | Tweet | |
Prerequisite: |
None | ||
| Items Needed: | Clicker, Treats |
TEACH
If you want a well trained dog in the house, one of the first things you need to teach is his name. With Caspian, I grabbed my clicker and tore some bacon into small pieces. The first thing that Caspian needed to know was that whenever he looked at me, he could get a piece of bacon. I started out just ignoring what Caspian was doing, which was nudging me for his treat. He looked down for a minute, exasperated, and then back up at me. Suddenly, he heard a click, and a treat dropped to the ground. A bit surprised (and grateful), he immediately swallowed it and looked up again. CLICK! and drop. I threw it a bit farther away this time so he had to turn around. When he got his treat, he turned around to look at me, and I clicked and treated again. By this time I had started saying his name whenever he looked at me. "Caspian," click, treat.
"Always end
before your dog
gets tired. You want
your dog to look forward
to his training session.
Sessions are more
productive when
they enjoy it."
Soon, I knew he was getting the idea of what was going on. I waited until he looked away and I said, "Caspian." He jerked his head over toward where I was sitting and I clicked and treated, giving him a big piece of bacon.
STEPS
Step One: Ignore your dog until he looks straight at you. Click and treat.
Step Two: Do this several times, eventually adding your dog's name right before you click and treat.
Step Three: Continue doing this until your dog will look at you when you say his name.
TEACHING TROUBLE
Why doesn't he remember tricks?
Even though Caspian had learned his name by the end of the session, I continued to have training sessions with him just to reinforce the trick. It's so easy for a dog to learn a trick and do it every time today, but tomorrow it is forgotten. If we owners be patient and stick with it, our dogs will do the same and will eventually obey us every time.
