How To Teach Your Dog His Name

This video by kikopup is an awesome showcase of teaching dogs their name. If you have multiple dogs at home, this would be highly beneficial for everyone involved: If each dog knows their name, the right one comes to you when called. You will need many treats during this training process, especially if you have more than three dogs. Gather your dogs and let them stay in front of you. As you mention the name of one dog, give the treat.

Repeat this with all the dogs. You can mention names in random to let them learn even more. It would be best if your dogs stay in a sitting position while you say their names and give them their treats. Practice this over and over again. Keep in mind that you should never give the dog the treat unless it moves when its name is called. It would also be best if your dog stays on all fours as they get the treat. If it moves its paws up, move the treat away and repeat the step until your dog stays on all fours.

Now, if you have a dog that is “food aggressive”, you should never feed the dogs all together. You should start by having them on a leash far apart that they won’t go after each other when a treat drops. Otherwise it could be potentially disastrous. If one of your dogs has this attitude, you could put it on leash while the others are not. When you give the unleashed ones food, you should also give the leashed one, food. This is basic classical conditioning to change your dog’s emotional response to other dogs being around while they are working for food from being a punishing experience to being a reinforcing one. This will help in promoting the idea of not putting a dog’s face into another dog’s face when getting a treat.

If you are not certain about how your dogs will act around food altogether, you can start off by placing them in positions far from each other’s reach. Some dogs actually may need to have 10 feet of space from from each other until they start to understand that they don’t need to compete for food. This will work best for a pack of dogs and letting them all understand that their handler is in charge. By properly training your dogs to know their name and acting properly altogether in front of food, you will decrease their stress levels and enhance their discipline and patience.

Photo – www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwPPIxC0J5s