golden retriever pup with short attention span

[vister]

hello all, im just looking for a little advice on helping to train my golden retriever pup. she is 10 weeks old, already sits, lays down, and kennels up on command. she is a family pet before hunting dog, but the one thing we are struggling with is retrieving!! she will sit when told to, then i throw her toy, and she will stay till i say fetch it up. then she brings it right back to me, and drops it at my feet. we reward her with praise and a small treat everytime, but the problem is she will only do it a couple times, then she loses interest. is there anything we can do about that? its hard to try training her when she has such a lack of interest.

shes a brilliant puppy, with an outstanding nose! she'll dig through 10 inches of snow just to find a single feather! shes a house dog, which potty training has been nearly flawless the past 4 weeks. we kennel her up at bedtime and when we eat, and give her a chunk of a treat each time so she knows she isnt being punished. when we say kennel, she runs right into it! she sits, sits pretty, comes, lays down bout half the time, and is packed full of energy. just cant figure out why she loses interest when retrieving. thanks for any imput.

[sweept]

Don't worry she is only 10 weeks old and her attention span is still very short. It will get longer with age. Just make sure that you don't overdo it and burn her out. Keep it fun.

[RiverRunner]

Like sweept said thats normal. Keep it short 5 minutes or less. Don't really get into the formal retriever training until about 5-6 months. Keep the retrieving fun for now. Maybe work on sit, stay, come, heel a little bit on a leash. My lab had a really short attention span for about a year.

Sounds like shes doing pretty good.

[Smoker]

Mine did the same when she was young. When she gets to a year she won't want to quit and you will have to hide the ball so she will stop. Mine is now 7 and knows when she has done enouph fetching but she will be ready to go in a short time again.

[OutlawTorn]

She's 10 weeks old...

Sounds like you've got a great pup on your hand. Keep it that way by keeping your training sessions short until she's about a year old. You can gradually ramp up the amount of time you train each day during the first year, but too much pressure when they're too young will burn them out and they'll shut down.