NAMING YOUR DOG

Choose a short, clear name, that is, easy to say. Choose an unusual name, too or else. On future occasions, when you are hunting with others or at a group training class, there may be several dogs with the same name and three or four will come running up whenever you call your own dog. Do not call your dog (puppy or adult) by name all the time. The dog will cease to pay attention, and the call will go unheeded. Without its mother, its brothers and sisters and away from the place where it was born, the young puppy will feel lost and bewildered in your home.

To speed up the adaptation process, bring with it something which smells of its mother and it sibling : a piece of material or even some straw, to make it more comfortable in its basket. A few days before you go to fetch your new puppy, take to the kennels, the blanket or mattress that will be used in its basket so that it becomes impregnated with the smells of the place where the puppy has lived so far. Take it home again with the puppy so that it will be like taking the puppy’s own smell home with it.

It has already been said that in the absence of the mother or siblings puppies need to be close to something hairy, soft and warm or they will whine and whimper rather than sleep. There is a good reason why a puppy whines too. It is, in fact, complaining so as to obtain its mother’s aid. If you make it feel safe and secure with you, it will not whine. For the first few days, put a small clock inside the warm, soft mattress : its tick will remind the puppy of its mother’s heartbeat, a dog that cannot be called is of house.

A good response to a call depends not on the dog, but on you, when the dog has learnt that it has a name, it must learn to react to it by coming happily to its master or mistress. So its name must be associated with something positive : rewards, stroking, words of praise. If you call a puppy to you to scold it or worse, the point of the call will be lost. If you have to correct a mistake made by the puppy never use its name when doing so. The dog should equate its name with positive, enjoyable things, it must come to you readily wherever it may be. And is this easy to achiev ?

Of course : as long as you do not make any mistake, call your puppy in particular when it is hungry and when you actually give it its food. Call it also when you see that it is already coming towards you. Greet it with warm words and lots of stroking, make it very clear that coming to you when called will always be to its advantage. Tell yourself over and over that a dog that cannot be called is of no use and that a good response to a call depends not on the dog, but on you. Tell your self, too, that it is useless and harmful to say the dog’s name if you are going to shout at it or correct it. This will undermine the effectiveness of the call. If you do not make any slips, you will soon see your young trainee wherever it may be, running up to you, tail wagging, at the first call.