Your puppy must learn its name as soon as you bring them home. This should be one of the first things you teach them, along with potty training and crate training.
You will need a dog clicker and some training treats. I recommend soft, chewy treats with 1-3 calories each. This way, you can use a lot of them, and your puppy can eat them quickly without stalling the training.
We teach the puppy its name as part of our Puppy Training Program. It's essential only to use the puppy's name when you need to get their attention for recall or when multiple dogs are present. Read this blog post about when to use your puppy's name.
The Name Game
Get close to your puppy, but don’t hold or talk to them to prevent overstimulation.
Have your puppy look away from you or become slightly distracted.
Call the puppy by its name.
If they look at you right after you say their name, mark the behavior with a click and reward them with a treat.
Do this at least ten times in a row. After several days, they should begin to recognize their name.
Troubleshooting
If your puppy is not catching on to learning its name, don’t worry about it; keep trying and practicing. Puppies don’t use their ears as much as their nose and eyes. Teaching them to listen at first can be challenging, but try not to get discouraged.
Try using different tones to call your puppy by its name. I uploaded a video to my Instagram page of me teaching a puppy her name using a low, medium, and high tone. The puppy responded better to the low tone first, the high pitch second, and almost no response to the mid-tone. It would help if you experimented with your puppy to find out what works best for it.
TIP: If you don’t have a clicker, use the word “yes” as the marker. A clicker works best for novel commands and teaching the puppy their name, but using the word “yes” should work just fine.
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