Okay, after a day delay I am back . I have 3 questions for the experts to ponder. As this has been a great weekend at times and a very frustrating one at times too with respect to my new buddy.

1. Are hiccups common with a puppy? Mine gets them at least once per day.

2. She is a canine vacuum cleaner. When i take her outside, her main goal is to pick up anything she can. sticks, rocks, little pieces of plastic, she constantly has nose on ground, which i don't mind, but she sucks up everything. I tried yesterday to get most of it up, but obviously ya can't get everything out of a yard. So i have started the 'yuck' stuff. However, the quick jerk on the leash doesn't seem to phase her a bit. too young for it to? she just keeps going at it.

3. Simply ignoring the 'come' command. When we are outside, she often completely ignores me if I say come. sometimes she will do it, but if her mind is on anything else, she just ignores it. Now...the 8wks 2 8 mo dvd says only correct for the come command. but doesn't really go into how to train to 'come' i am going to watch again, but don't remember anything on this. and lets just say she keeps on not coming, then what?

she has the 'crate' command down, so that's a good thing, and the whining is much less. another milestone, she slept all night last night without going to potty or whining. so i actually got a full nights sleep.

Maybe i am just expecting way too much too early, but if ya have any thoughts, i am curious.

1. maybe the hiccups are related to "hoovering" down food and stuff so fast.
2. When Bart was a pup, he ate every single earthworm he found fried on the sidewalk or road, and bird poo. If i saw it coming, i could go around it, but people would be amazed at what things blend in on asphalt.I taught him to drop it, at first, i had to pull some nasty stuff out of him mouth, but he picked up pretty quickly. I think He'll grow out of that. Also, you could try walking little faster, or trotting, if he has to concentrate on keeping up with you, he won't be able to scan the ground for edibles.
3. Maybe keep a 20 foot line on him, when he ignores come, pull him toward you, when he is on his way, praise him until he gets all the way to you. Mine like to do this "we are going to come, but as soon as we reach you, we will turn and finish playing" thing, so i'll put the leashes back on, and make them follow through.

If I'm not mistaken, your dog is 10 weeks old?

1. yes

2. At 10 weeks old, it's pretty much impossible to teach your dog not to grab things and put it in its mouth. I would stop jerking the leash since she won't put 2 and 2 together. At least not yet. Just be patient and say NO and remove the item from her mouth. It's hard not to loose your cool after doing this over and over day in day out.

3. At 10 weeks old, I would say that is WAY too early to expect your dog to come to you. I wouldn't correct her for not coming either, since at that age you want to bond with your dog and you don't want it to associate come with anything bad.

Marker training (I assume this is how you're teaching tricks) is a great way to bond with a dog, and it's never too early to start working on basic commands with this method. But don't expect your dog to come to you at 10 weeks old with distractions. At that age, I wouldn't give a command if I didn't have food to reward the dog. JMO

And I don't think the puppy DVD teaches how to teach the recall. You need to get the Basic Obedience DVD.

Regards

excellent. Thanks for the responses. I have the 20 ft lead and the basic obedience dvd on the way. I thought I may be overreacting....i am sure if i was an 9 week puppy, i wouldn't pay too much attention if i was outside.

1. Hiccups are normal.
2. Use redirects regarding rocks, sticks, leafs, etc...though remember, some things the pup will just need to explore. So long as it's not hurting himself, allow for some play/exploration...they are babies and learn through taste too...much like a human child putting everything in his mouth...so, just keeping it fun with redirects, and likely, the pup will stop doing this later...if not, after a bit, use NO with redirect.
3. With my pup, at a young age (3 months?), I had another person hold my pup back and I'd run as fast as I could the other way about 50 feet and then holler "Cato COME" and my helper would hold a few seconds and then release pup. Of course TONS of praise and toy/YUMMY Treats (STEAK).
Have fun!!!

That's a good way to inspire "I wanna come when she says come!" in the pup.

Even with a badly-trained (or untrained) adult, I always make it a point to start recall work by calling the dog for every good thing that's going to happen. A ride in the car, a meal, a walk, a game ... all preceded by the recall.

Just as others are saying, you want the pup to *want* to come when you call.

(Of course, you also do not want to teach that the recall is optional, so you wouldn't call if you had any doubt about compliance and had no way to reel him in.)

 Quote: mark surgenor

1. Are hiccups common with a puppy? Mine gets them at least once per day.

Totally normal, and for human amusement as well......when they stare at you and hiccup at 15 second intervals......

 Quote: mark surgenor

2. She is a canine vacuum cleaner. When i take her outside, her main goal is to pick up anything she can. sticks, rocks, little pieces of plastic, she constantly has nose on ground, which i don't mind, but she sucks up everything. I tried yesterday to get most of it up, but obviously ya can't get everything out of a yard. So i have started the 'yuck' stuff. However, the quick jerk on the leash doesn't seem to phase her a bit. too young for it to? she just keeps going at it.

Redirection works great, as well as implementing a "leave it" command. This will come when the pup gets older and you start giving a light pop on the lead with "leave it".

 Quote: mark surgenor

3. Simply ignoring the 'come' command. When we are outside, she often completely ignores me if I say come. sometimes she will do it, but if her mind is on anything else, she just ignores it. Now...the 8wks 2 8 mo dvd says only correct for the come command. but doesn't really go into how to train to 'come' i am going to watch again, but don't remember anything on this. and lets just say she keeps on not coming, then what?

You have to be the dogs "everything" and the "funnest thing ever" to the dog. I really like Michele's method, sounds like it would work well and if you need to, keep a long line on the pup so that you can "help" her come to you if needed.
This one works well: http://www.leerburg.com/729.htm

Remember: HAVE FUN and the dog will have fun as well.

My pup is 10 weeks and I have exactly the same issues. What I did with the 'Hoover' issue is teach 'drop it' and exchange for a high value treat. Now she will drop whatever, even when I am across the yard. Of course if I don't remove the offending item immediately she will get it again. BTW, if you throw it to get rid of it, make sure it gets over the fence...we started a game of fetch with something truly putrid.

 Quote: carol boche

I really like Michele's method, sounds like it would work well ...

I really like it too, and added it to the recall tool box. :>

That's one of my favorite commands to train. It's easy when you have the "make it GOOD for the dog to come when he's called" mindset, but so many pet people do absolutely everything wrong on the recall: Call the dog to be corrected; chase the dog around the yard and establish a new "game;" call the dog when you don't know if he'll come and you have no way to enforce it (like a long line), making the recall optional in the dog's mind .....

I wouldn't come either!

 Quote: connie sutherland

 Quote: carol boche

I really like Michele's method, sounds like it would work well ...

I really like it too, and added it to the recall tool box. :>

I MUST say...this training method for "COME" came NOT from me...silly me, I thought everyone who wasn't a newbie trained this way. This method came from a very talented and gifted trainer I know...yep, its a keeper method for the "training tool box".

It's also a method I employ still, just to keep him good and reminded of what it means to COME--NOW.