Introducing Toby

[ChocolateLab121221]

Hello Everyone

I wanted to say hello and introduce Toby my 11 week old chocolate lab puppy. He loves to play until he is exhausted and sleep and repeat
We have been working on come, sit, stay, and lay down however he does not seem very interesting in training just playing. I am keeping training sessions to 5-7 mins then let him play for 1-2 hours and another training session.
He gets along fine with out 19 month old female Sydney who is a small german shepard terrier mix.

Thanks
Brad

[kimbersmom]

Welcome to you and Toby! He's still a tiny baby, so be patient with him. Playing is how they learn!

[barry581]

Welcome to the board! Toby sure is a cute little guy.

I responded to your other thread, and I'll add this here.

Right now you're deal with a baby. Lab pups, particularly males, have the attention span of a gnat. At Toby's age, two or three repetitions may be all you're going to get before he's on to something else. Let him be a puppy, throw things for him to chase, tease him with a squeaky toy while you're sitting on the floor. Get him a Kong wobbler and use that to feed him part of his meals, or some other type of self feeding toy or snuffle mat. Start making him sit before you walk through a doorway. Grab a toy he likes or some treats and as your walking the yard randomly call him to you to start working on recall.

[Jollymolly]

Too cute

Welcome

[Snowshoe]

Welcome to the board. Toby is a cutie-pie for sure.

[blacklabs]

Welcome to you and your very adorable Toby, such a gorgeous little man.

I clicker trained my last pup and initially did approx 3 x 5 minutes sessions per day as Barry has mentioned above pups do have the attention span of a gnat, so short durations and multiple sessions a day are the key and as pup grows, the duration can increase. My boy never forgot his clicker training throughout his lifetime and whilst clicker training is to reward their compliance to a command, I also used it over the years to get my boy's attention whenever he decided to ignore a command to come, particularly if he was over excited when encountering another dog and "deaf ears" would come on.

Karen Pryor is a founder and proponent of clicker training for dogs and highly knowledgeable and experienced in this field and has lots of articles on clicker training and I have included a link below to her article "Fifteen Tips for Getting Started with the Clicker" and if you have kids you can get them involved in the clicker training and in addition to this link there are lots of clicker training videos on Youtube:
https://www.clickertraining.com/15tips

[coopersmom]

What a cutie!!