At the heart of a dog with complete and well-absorbed training are a set of “manners” that today’s canine companions cannot do without. Skills, responsible independence, clearheaded… these are some of the qualities that make these dogs a joy to live with, and make them more preferable to, say, a golden retriever that runs very fast or bark to scare away intruders.

And among these essential manners is one that cannot be missed, i.e. speed at responding to a call for attention. Indeed, there is so much to be gained in giving a dog golden retriever training to improve in its attention span. Helping a dog to learn its name is also related to this task.

To develop your dog in this area, put your dog on a leash and some treats in your pocket. Drill it in a familiar environment without visual or noisy distractions. Keep still and let your pup take in what’s going on around it. Then call your dog’s name in a cheery, positive tone. Expect to say it around three times just to get the dog to look at you. When the dog orients itself to you, say “Good!” or click if you are using a clicker. Observe and respect proper timing, since what you want is to mark the moment it turns and looks at you. This time, the dog does not have to hold your gaze.

Now what should be done in case you need to call the dog a couple of times since it is very distracted? Try making a lip-smacking noise or any non-belligerent sounding noise to catch its attention. Or if you think the training area is to be blamed, then think of the next site for next time.

Most dogs catch on rather fast with what you are driving at here. True enough, soon the only thing needed is to say the dog’s name once and then it indeed turns to look at you. But then, a time will come that the dog perfects this, but only in the quiet confines of say, your home. If so, train it to respond to your calls in places with still more people, sights and sounds this time.

To end, a final golden retriever training tip. But now you need to be aware that commands can also be overused, to the point of eliciting contempt from the dog, instead of respect. Try not to call the dog for the sake of calling. In fact, every time you call or command the dog to do something, try making it hard to guess what your reward will be, and so in this way dog looks forward to doing things for you.