Teach Your Small Dog to Recognize Their Name

Video Transcript

Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village, and today we’re going to talk about how to train a small dog. This is Rico. He’s a Mi-Ki—a Mi-Ki is a Papillion, Maltese, and a Japanese Chin. They’re wonderful affectionate little dogs, an interesting mix. Rico is not real sure what his name is. He’s still a puppy, about 16 or 17 weeks old, so that’s what we’re going to work on, teach him to pay attention in what his name is. What I’m going to do is say his name and then mark when he makes eye contact. Now an important point if you haven’t already, please take a look at the pre-training videos, because all of this training is contingent upon you starting to develop the right type of relationship with your dog. So let me get his leash untangled. Rico, good… I know it’s hard to see from that angle, but as soon as he makes eye contact, I say good, which marks the appropriate behavior, and then he gets the treat. Rico, good. Now that time I moved my hand up toward my eyes a little bit, just give him a little help. Now he knows I have the treat. So I need to get him, Rico… good, good. He looked away there, so that’s why I marked it twice. Now he’s starting to anticipate which hand the treat is coming from. So I’m going to switch it up a little bit. Rico… good. Now there it took a few minutes for him to actually look at my eyes, he was looking at my chin. Be sure to only mark exactly the behavior that you want to reinforce. Rico, good… aww! little Rico is getting it. Now after a while, you want to start making your reinforcement more random. Don’t give him the treat every single time. Be sure to check out the video on marking. And practice this in different locations; gradually set your dog up to succeed by gradually increasing the distractions around which he or she can work. So our little Mi-Ki is learning his name and learning how to pay attention.

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