Transfer the value and reward for the “Say Hello” to you

In everyday life every person you come across walking in the street or at the beach will not have clicker and treats in their hands to reward your puppy. What you realistically want is for your puppy to say hello to someone it may meet and then come back to and focus on you.

The foundation for this next stage is that your puppy must have developed a strong value for “Say Hello”. If you do not have the basic foundation, your puppy will start to take some shortcuts from the desired behaviour. As an example, your puppy may not touch the hand it was asked to but instead goes straight away to the treat, this is actually quite common.

If your puppy does not have a strong value for “Say Hello” please keep on reinforcing the “Say Hello” game as explained in the week 1 before moving to this stage.

If your puppy does have a strong value for “Say Hello”, the reward now does not need to be located in the “Say Hello” hand anymore: we are going to train your puppy to focus back on you.

  1. Ask your puppy to “Say Hello” to a friend of yours
  2. Click when your puppy does the behaviour
  3. Reward from your own hand: Your puppy will learn to turn its head back towards you and focus on you again.

If in the first few attempts your puppy is not looking back to you, gently tap your puppy on its shoulders and/or walk backward luring your puppy with a treat. In doing this your puppy will get attracted by your motion.