Hazel understands come, except for when strangers are around and shes trying to play. as for the potty, sometimes she listens, sometimes she just does it in her own time.

how did you teach her come? i will take any advice i can get.

ummm idk. LOL. i call her, and make the "kiss kiss" noise. she comes 80% of the time if not more. she picked up on it very well.

lol...oh,my dogs do that, i mean the actual word 'come'.

well i use a mix of the kiss kiss and "hazel come on".

She will outgrow this and in a few months you'll notice a huge difference in her attention span (think 2 year old child).

Dogs respond best to short training intervals (5 mins at a time)
They respond to delicious food rewards and positive motivators
13 weeks is not too young to train. At that age Barney and Daisy were very reliable with all basic commands. Teddy is horrible and distracted at obedience, at at 22 mos old is in his 2nd time in advanced class learning to keep a stay for more than 2 seconds. Some dogs are better at obedience than others - it really depends on the dog. By comparison, Barney will remain in a down-stay on command with a young child riding a tricycle in circles around him and other dogs in the vicinity. It depends on the dog. Your goal at this age is to get her to pay attention to you and focus on you. The way to do that (at least what has always worked for me) is delicious food (I use tiny pieces of chicken breast). Remember that obedience is not about fun and tricks - it's a language and relationship of rules by which your dogs should live. If you choose to use a clicker, make sure to read about how to have your dog understand the clicker first otherwise it will not be useful.

I've done petsmart classes - I think they are fine for socialization of a young puppy. I think there are better training options than petsmart, but I live in an urban area with many options so it may be all you've got in more rural places. They do positive training methods there so I think it's a good start if there are no other options.
I did puppy classes before my dogs completed their shots - for me, the benefits of socialization outweighed the risks but it's not something everyone would be comfortable with. I do at least one training class a year with all three in a formal setting.

As much as I tend to do the commands like this at times, dogs do respond better to one command words. I use the dogs name + command.

BARNEY, SIT
BARNEY, COME
BARNEY, DOWN-STAY
BARNEY, GIVE

etc. etc.

I also tell them everything we are doing together only I ask it with a question mark:

DAISY, PICK UP?
DAISY, RIDE?
DAISY, BALL?


I find this works well!

This is exactly what u was taught to do. Great advice!

thank you sooo much. this is the type of advice i was looking for! it was very helpful adn i will let everyone know of any progress Hazel makes.

OOPPS. I meant this is exactly what I was taught to do.

Hmmmm... I was taught the opposite, to not use the name with the command because they tend to tune things out. Kind of like when your 3 year old says "mom, mom, mom,mom..." :rolleyes:

hahahhaha this is TRUE. i have heard both of these opinions though. i don't even remember what comes out of my mouth when i say it, but it works mostly.

They are still very much babies until about 2 years old. they will try to please you when it is just you, but when there are any distractions, forget it.

Although small breeds mature faster physically, I think they are much slower to mature mentally.

well thats fine by me! i love my baby! ahaha. i wish she could stay like this forever, although i will love her just as much or most likely more when shes gets bigger!