What to do if the puppy is not responsive..

[ruchika]

or I think is just plain lazy. LOL. When I'm training my 17 week old GSD, she does well for a bit on all the commands. We've only done sit, down, stay and come so far. But after about 3-4 minutes, she stops responding. She doesn't care about getting treats anymore (and she is usually very food driven) and will just plain ignore the commands. What should I do then? Just stop the session?

[Pattycakes]

My dog did that when she was younger too. I would just let her go and play doing something she wanted and then after about 10 minutes...she would be willing to "work" again. I figured her mind would just shut down and she needed to reboot! LOL

[Lilie]

You have to make it a game. It has to be exciting for her to keep her motivated. If it isn't exciting, she'll shut down.

Everytime she responds in the manner you want (sit etc.) say, "YES!" (or good girl etc.) and treat her while making a big deal of her sit. What ever turns her on. If it takes jumping and down, giving her a treat, pulling out her favorite toy and singing YMCA all at the same time! She has to get excited about learning.

[gsdraven]

Yes, stop the session. At that age your training sessions should be no more than 5 min at time several times a day and should be lots of fun fun fun. Use games as the reward and throw some commands in there.

For example, ask for a sit and throw the ball as a reward. When she brings it back as for "drop" and a treat reward. Now ask for a down and throw the ball as a reward. Saying something like "yes" to mark that she did it right.

A 17 week old puppy is like expecting a 2 year old human to sit in a classroom and do nothing but learn for hours at a time.

[Elaine]

You have to be way more fun. If you aren't fun, most dogs will just quit out of boredom after just a couple of minutes.

[Jax08]

You need to stop the lesson before she starts ignoring you. If you know her threshhold is 4 minutes, stop at 3. Always stop on a good note.

So you are working on Sit...Get two or three sits and after the last one give her a handful of treats or toss her ball. Work the command into every day things. If you want to continue working with her then give her a break.

You don't want to push her to the point that she is shutting down.

[Chris Wild]

Puppies have short attention spans and get bored and distracted easily. Training sessions must be kept short and sweet. Make it fun, and end on a good note when the pup is still engaged and wanting to work, before she loses interest. If you work until she is losing interest, you have worked her too much. Make the sessions shorter and also mix them up a bit and don't just do the same old exercises every time. Variety also keeps it more interesting.

Several short sessions, maybe just a couple minutes each, a day is far better than one or two longer sessions.

[doggiedad]

wow, at 17 weeks your dog sits,
downs, stays and comes. i didn't start
any formal training with my dog untill he was
4 months old. maybe you're teaching your dog
to much to soon. your dog is young and probably
gets bored and distracted easily.

[mssandslinger]

I started my boy at 12 weeks and he was about the same, i just had to run around the house all hyper calling him and being super excited like i was playing with him.

[Pattycakes]

I actually started my GSD puppy in a class at 9 weeks old. It was a STAR puppy class. She learned her sit, down, come commands pretty quick. Now we are just refining them more.