Puppies have very little focus. Their train of thought goes a little like this: “Ohhhh look at the tree. Oh, my human is calling to me, let’s go check tha—– SQUIRREL!!”
It can be so cute at first – but it’s so frustrating to feel that we cannot keep our puppy’s attention. Without securing how to maintain your pup’s focus, your training sessions will become very hard going forward and you may see minimal success.
The best way to teach your pup to focus is to train them to look at you. You can either wave your hand, click your tongue, or snap your fingers – whatever you want them to consistently respond to. Complete your gesture, and award them with a training treat/pebble of kibble as soon as they look at you. When they are first learning this, any glance at you is worthy of a reward.
As they start to master this and catch on, make them look at you longer and longer, building the endurance of their focus, before rewarding them. This is a very easy skill to teach, but it is important to start teaching this as young as possible.