What are we doing wrong?

I wonder if she has been accidentally caught by a hand reaching out, or even sun glasses falling off a nose? Both have caused brief periods of what looked like hand shyness in my dogs. Have you checked her ears and mouth? It is possible that soreness from teething or an ear problem is making her wary of hands near her face.

The other thing to be aware of is that poodles often don't respond well to drilling or repetitive training exercises - they can either get bored, or decide that if what they are doing does not result in the anticipated reward they must be doing something wrong, and get anxious and confused. If there are no health issues that need sorting out, I would concentrate on fun for a while - sometimes we get so focussed on hitting all the puppy development targets for socialisation and training and all the rest we can forget to play. I'd get down in a play bow and be silly - let her show you how she wants to play, whether it is tickling and wrestling or keep away with a toy, and play several times a day with lots of giggling and singing. Play "Come and get me!", calling her and running away, flapping and laughing. Play "Follow the leader" for treats and praise. Make everything a fun game rather than a challenging lesson, so that the game and you playing it with her is highly rewarding in itself - she is still very young, after all, and babies learn best through play.

Both fjm and reraven have given you great suggestions. I will add a couple of more ideas. First keep your training sessions very short and scattered throughout the day. This will make it much harder for it to be boring drilling. Make as much of it into a game as you can. Keep yourself fun and silly.


Relationship building is what training at this age should be all about. Work on games that promote having Lacey connect to you and making and keeping eye contact. Impulse control is also super useful. I think if you search here at PF for posts I've made about the five cookie game, with me, get it game and such you will find a number of useful things you can do to build up your connection with her.


In the meantime if she doesn't come when called she doesn't deserve to be off leash. Take her in the yard on leash to do her potty. Practice short distance and very motivated recalls until she comes 100% of the time. To paraphrase some well know dog trainer (forget who): If you have a dog who doesn't come when called, you don't really have a dog.

It helps to vary up your rewards, too. When I do a serious training session or class with Archie, I usually take a variety of different treats -- some he likes more than others, though he likes them all somewhat -- break them up into tiny bits as necessary, and mix them up in my treat bag. I call it his Treat Cocktail. It keeps him interested, because he never knows what he'll get for obeying: sometimes it's a ho-hum treat, but then suddenly it's glorious CHEESE! You can give multiple treats for really exceptional behavior too, to increase the "slot machine" effect.

And don't just think of food rewards, either. Anything your dog likes can be a reward -- play time, toys, scratches, getting to go through doors, even just a high happy voice. Require your dog to do a cued behavior before they can get up on the couch, for example. Or don't even cue it -- silly running games are a way of teaching "being near me is fun!" which reinforces recall even if you don't practice it specifically.

And yeah, sometimes dogs are just moody or distracted. Especially puppies.

Poodles respond to play more than any other breed I have trained. I trained recall with Noelle by playing lots of hide and seek. Run and hide behind a tree, play peek-a-boo, and giggle with laughter when the dog finds you. Do it again. Don't be a stick in the yard calling, "COME!" Your poodle will think you are very boring and not worth coming to. Food rewards are good, but play is better. Poodles love to frolic and they love to frolic with you. Grab a squeaky tug toy, hide behind a tree, and squeak away, then play tug and laugh. Pick a new tree and do it again.

I played keep away to help Noelle build a desire to be with me. Running away from her, yelping that I wanted Noelle to leave me alone and go away, while I was laughing, as she bounced at my heels. "No, go away!" Run another direction. "Go away!" Still laughing, and Noelle was still bouncing next to me. "Why are you following me?" More running, and more laughing. I wanted to teach Noelle to follow me and desire to be with me, so I built that by being the most interesting, most ridiculous, most fun thing in her environment. The sillier I was, the stronger her desire to be with me became. My rewards were random from the start. It could be food rewards. It could be a toy. It could be me laughing and petting her. But, it was always worth it and always fun to come to me, because I am the Goddess of Frolic.

Play hide and seek in your house. Have someone hold your puppy in the kitchen. You hide anywhere, with treats, and call, Come! Then laugh when the dog finds you. Now, you hold the puppy, and the other person hides with treats. We actually played hide and seek for one meal a day when our dogs were puppies. Back and forth, racing through the house and finding us was how they ate.

Try getting sillier, become the Goddess of Frolic, and see how that improves things.

As far as the hand shy behavior, encourage your husband to become a chicken dispenser. He sits on the floor, with chicken in his hands, and waits for the puppy to lick his hands. No moving hands, no trying to pet the puppy, just sitting still with chicken available.Also, don't try to pet the puppy, let the puppy pet him. If he's a chicken dispenser, it won't be long before the puppy starts to pet his hands. His hands are good things. This won't last forever. I'm betting it's a temporary puppy brain glitch.

Being also a brand new poodle mom has taught me a lot about how they are different than other dogs. Very very intelligent means very easily bored. Also mine has a very strong "what's in it for me" attitude. So ask yourself what happens as a result of responding to your come? Is it the same old treat - or are you taking something from him? Does he have to come inside = loss of freedom. Does he go on the leash right after = loss of freedom again. Is he being groomed right after? Are you calling him only to come in from the yard - or to end playtime. Mine keeps me on my toes - with about 5 or 6 no consequence recalls for every consequence one. Like others have said - the easiest way to teach my poodle anything is to play. And the only way I can get a reliable recall is with consequences that are alternately highly rewarding (major jackpot - often with an unexpected treat) and sometimes a little scary - as in I will call when I leave an area - and I WILL leave. If you didn't answer my come - too bad... One of the dog trainers I worked with always said - don't make it your job to supervise where your dog is - make him believe it is his job to supervise where you are. And I was taught to never dispense a treat after a come without touching the collar first - to avoid the hand shy ducking.