Obedience Help - Page 1

How do I teach my 16 week old GSD puppy to listen to my command when he is distracted or busy chewing/eating/etc
Any techniques or methods to practice this?

12-16 weeks is the key window for attention -- you are at the end of that period and are now noticing the loss of attention. You can still solve it.

You must teach a "watch me" command -- a command which means "be still (usually sitting in heel position) and watch my face."  (For competitive reasons, some handlers actually use the word "ready" or even the dog's name to mean just this.)

When I say "watch me" my dog must be absolutely still watching my face.  We play games in this manner.  In fact, once the dog is advanced, I actually throw things, wave my hands out of view, and toss food treats around in order to lure my dog into looking away from my face -- and then I utter a special command that means "are you crazy?  watch my face until you are released!"  (My command to my gsd is a quiet but firm "eh eh!" but with some dogs I have trained it had to be loud and assertive.) 

(I have a second dog, a standard poodle, who is not smart enough to be steady so I make his distractions far less interesting.  My gsd, Datscha Frauengarten, out of Shelley Strohl's Carol x Gabi, is very, very smart, so he holds his gaze under amazing distractions.  In fact, he can now recognize numbers, at least the number "three" and I can count numbers and he knows he can only break his gaze on the number "three" or "ok").

You can play lots of games with balls and treats -- you give the watch me command and your dog's eyes are glued to your face -- eventually you will look away and he will maintain his gaze but in the beginning you are both looking into each other's eyes.  Eventually, you give him his "break" command (usually it's "ok" -- whatever command you use to say it is okay for your dog to leave the house or car door, that is, break his body hold and move.)  In my case, "three" is one of my break commands.

After four weeks of getting his attention on command and getting gently corrected for even moving his eyes (he will humorously test you after a while -- don't be mean, just firm) you will have tried him doing this for balls and food and from the heel and other positions -- including standing, sitting, and platzing next to you and in front of you.  You then start heeling or fussing with the watch me command - but just for a few steps!  Never longer than he can maintain the stare.

Soon this becomes the basis of a lot of your competitive training -- including competitive heeling and, according to your organization, things like directed jumping and directed retrieving.

Good luck!

LOL.

That was just a test..it works now.