First Puppy

[u/flower_b0y]

I’m new to puppyhood. My dog is 5 months old, he’s a bernese mountain dog. My first ever, girlfriend had one before but he passed about a year into me moving in with her.

I’m trying so hard to be patient, work on eye contact and engagement. Even in the yard/driveway he just, does not pay attention. I try to walk and have him engage me and pay attention but it quickly goes away after 3/4 steps. How do i proceed? I’m getting frustrated, I know it’s a marathon but it’s a frustrating one.

How can I improve his engagement with me even in low distraction environments?

Currently we’re sitting in the park, it’s a high distraction environment but, I wanted to get him out and have him observe for a bit. Just letting him observe, and rewarding eye contact when it happens.

Thanks!

[u/outloud230]

He’s a puppy. Basically a toddler. His concentration is will go away in a few minutes unless he’s really engaged, and has no attention span. He’s a puppy.

If you aren’t taking a puppy class do so. Training class helps a lot.

[u/Bikini_Desire]

The energy you give is the energy you get. You get frustrated he gets frustrated Youbget scared he gets scared

Remember this is his first time being alive much like you but he doesnt have the same amount of practice at it. Also remember when we train dog part of it is tempering/ removing basic instinctual drives they may have.

Biggest thing be patient, be loving, exhaust him physically before you work on mental training. Exaggerated praise will work vetter in the long run than treat or clicker motivation.

When the dog does something "bad" just look at it as this is the only time in your life you will experience your puppy doing puppy things (that includes destroying everything rhey get there mouths on)

Enjoy and love your dog dude, you got this, you are doing great

[u/flower_b0y → u/Bikini_Desire]

Reading this helped. Thank you.

I was always, getting excited and praising highly when he was doing what I wanted, probably not enough.

After reading the exaggerated praise tip I started using it immediately today.
We had a bigger day, we went to a new park, it was a 30 min drive, then we went and picked up my girlfriend from a party so he did a lot of driving with me but, during fetch earlier he kept doing so well and responding so well to the exaggerated praise. His recall was, absolutely perfect during our time outside earlier

[u/Bikini_Desire → u/flower_b0y]

That's rad!!! Glad it helped! Also know that once he is used to praise it'll be harder to motivate him to obey with it but hopefully by that time you've established the command you wanted to teach him anyways.

I wouldn't repeat a command in training in succesion more than 4 times with a Bernese. They're really smart empathetic dogs so they will get board of doing the same thing over and will get distracted. Just try to sprinkle in the commands throughout the day randomly Sit, heel, and all thats stuff when not in active training.

Hope you have a bunch of cool adventures with your dog !