The purpose of the Name Game is to teach your dog to pay attention to you when you say her name, which means looking at you and not ignoring you. Through repetitions of this game, your dog learns that it pays to look at you when he hears his name.
Name recognition is not the same as coming when called, although many dogs do come when you say their name, especially if you have previously associated the hearing of their name with great rewards.
Training Steps:
- Go to an area with minimal distractions
- The dog should have a good appetite.
- Have 10 pea sized (or smaller) rewards in your hand held behind your back.
- Say the dog’s name one time. You do not want to repeat her name, or any cue, over and over, because that dilutes the effectiveness of the word. Repeating the cue teaches her to ignore you multiple times, rather than helping her understand that you want her to respond the first time she hears the cue.
- The instant your dog looks at you, say “YES” and give one treat.
- If the dog doesn’t look at you, make an attention getting noise so your dog looks at you. The attention getting noise helps your dog to succeed. Don’t assume that she is being stubborn or ignoring you. Help her to succeed so she can get rewarded, which will cause her to be more likely to respond correctly the next time.
- Your dog will learn faster if you deliver the treat within one second of saying “Good”, which isi why you want to pre-load your hand with treats for the initial lessons.
- As soon as your dog finishes one treat, and while she is still looking at you, say “Good” and give another food reward up to 10 times. This helps build duration for attention behavior.
- Say your release word, “Okay” which means your dog is free to do what he wants but will not be earning treats from you until you start the Name Game again or cue another behavior.
- Repeat the name game, varying the number of food rewards given before each release, so that the does not learn, for instance, that he gets 2 treats each time you reward her and anticipates your release word. Be generous, make it very worthwhile for your dog to pay attention to you, especially in the beginning.
- Practice each day. The goal is to have your dog look at you when you say her name fro 10 feet away and responds by coming to you to get her reward.
- Once she comes to you from 10 feet away 90% of the time, practice calling her name in a distracting environment.
