Episode #261 The Art of Ignoring — Teaching Puppies to Focus Around Distractions

Does your puppy forget you exist the moment another dog, person, or noise shows up? You’re not alone — and you’re not failing.

In this episode, we break down why puppies struggle with focus in distracting environments and how to build attention step by step — without frustration or force.

You’ll learn why focus is a muscle, how to strengthen it through simple engagement games, and how to teach your puppy to choose you even when the world feels exciting. From name recognition under distraction to practical focus-building games you can use at home and on the go, this episode gives you clear, compassionate tools to help your puppy succeed.

Perfect for puppy parents struggling with attention around people, dogs, and everyday noises — and anyone who wants a calmer, more connected relationship with their dog.

🎙️ Tune in and start building focus, one rep at a time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Focus Beats Obedience
• 0:52 Puppies And The Pull Of Distractions
• 2:15 Redefining Focus As Check-Ins
• 3:15 Engagement Game In A Quiet Room
• 4:17 Making The Name Rewarding
• 4:49 Hand Targeting And Find It
• 6:22 Pattern Games For Predictability
• 6:59 Progress With Distance And Duration
• 8:18 Handling Disengagement Kindly

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

If you've ever tried to get your puppy's attention while another dog walks by, or while kids are out running, or when a leaf dares to move across the sidewalk, then today's episode is for you. We are talking about focus, not obedience, not control, but engagement. Because the truth is, a focused puppy is a teachable puppy. Welcome to the puppy training podcast. I'm Amy Jensen, founder of Baxter and Bella, the online puppy school. Here we are all about helping you create the best possible experience raising a puppy. From training tips to practical tricks, all aimed at fostering a happy, well-behaved dog who truly feels like part of the family. So if you are ready to enjoy the journey and strengthen the bond with your dog, let's get started. Hey everybody, welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Jensen. And I know many of you have a new dog at your house, and you might be surprised at how hard it is to keep their attention for very long. Their attention spans are so short when they are young. So today's episode, we were talking all about it. How do we get your puppy's attention? Here's the big idea that we're building on today. Focus is a muscle. It's something that we have to work on because just like any other muscle, it has to be trained gradually, consistently, and with the right level of challenge. We don't want to frustrate our puppies. We want to encourage them. So let's talk about why puppies struggle with distractions, what focus really means, and how to build it step by step without frustration for you or your dog. Let's start with something important. Your puppy isn't being stubborn or ignoring you on purpose. It kind of looks like that sometimes, and I hear that from people, but they're just biologically wired to notice movement, sounds, novelty, and other living things. So that's how they learn about the world. When your puppy stops listening because there's another dog around, or they ignore their name at the park, or they lose all interest in food whenever they're outside, that doesn't mean training has failed. It means the environment is louder than your relationship for now. It's more rewarding to your puppy than your relationship right now. So distractions don't erase training. It doesn't mean that your puppy hasn't learned properly. Now, our goal is we want to teach our puppy to choose us, even when other things are happening. So focus is not staring at me nonstop. It's not being perfectly still and it's not blocking out the world. What I'm looking for in my puppy is a check-in. They're willing to glance my way or they reorient back to me. Maybe they're able to disengage from distractions. So they're currently looking at a distraction and they can disengage with it. Now think of it this way: your puppy doesn't need to ignore the world forever. They just need to come back to you more easily and more often. That's the muscle we're building because the world is distracting and it will always be distracting. There's not going to be a day when you take your puppy out for a walk and there are zero distractions. That's just not realistic. So what we want are check-ins, we want that reorienting back to us and that disengagement from the distractions. Before we ever ask a puppy to focus around distractions, we need to make sure that we are in fact worth focusing on. So here's a simple game to build engagement with your dog. I want you to start in a quiet space. I want you to get some soft, high-value food ready. Stand or sit calmly. And the moment your puppy looks at you, I want you to mark yes and then toss that food reward for them to go get. No cues, no pressure, just reinforcement for looking at you. That's it. I want you to do this for 30 to 60 seconds, not very long. Just do it a few times a day. And over time, your puppy learns checking in with my human is awesome. It pays really well. And that belief is the foundation of focus. Now, let's talk about their name for a second. Your puppy's name should mean good things happen when I look at Amy, right? Not I'm about to get in trouble. So be careful how we use their name. If you're only saying their name when they're in trouble, then that word's not going to mean a great thing to them. Here's an exercise you can do with your puppy's name. I want you to say your puppy's name once. The instant they look at you, I want you to mark yes and pay them. If they don't respond, don't repeat it. Instead, make the environment easier and try again. Now, once this is really solid at home or in a nice quiet location, you can begin layering in distractions. You can try doing this in different rooms, maybe out in your backyard, maybe on a quiet sidewalk where there's not a lot of other things happening. Um, and maybe some distance from other people or dogs, and then that can decrease over time as your puppy gets better at it. So you say their name, whenever they look at you, yes, reward. Let's talk about a few favorite focus building games. Game number one is hand targeting. I want you to present your hand when your puppy touches it with their nose. I want you to mark yes and reward. So this gives your puppy a clear physical focus point. So you're just holding your hand palm open low enough that your puppy can come over and bump it with their nose. This is a great way to redirect attention. You can even put it on cue. I call it touch. Now, game number two is find it. I want you to toss a food reward on the ground, let your puppy sniff and find it, then wait for eye contact with you before tossing the next one. So we toss a food reward, they go get it. When they look back at you, toss another. When they look back at you, toss another. They start to figure out the faster I look at her, she tosses more food. So I better pay attention. This teaches switching between environment and handler and calm engagement. I love to do this outside in my backyard in the grass. Once your puppy's fully vaccinated, I like to take this one to the park. And I create enough distance away from the hard distractions, I play this game before we start walking or exploring at the park. All right, the next game is a pattern game. So dogs love patterns. Simple patterns like food, pause, food, step, food, step, food. Patterns create predictability for your puppy, which lowers stress and improves focus. You can count one, two, three, feed your dog a food reward. One, two, three, feed your dog a food reward. They're going to start to look at you when they hear that three, knowing that food comes next. And you can create the pattern to be whatever you want it to be. One common mistake I see a lot of handlers make is they go from training their dog inside their house to taking their dog to the park way too fast. So instead, I want you to think in terms of distance, duration, and difficulty. We help you with these in our basic and intermediate training courses. We teach you how to get your dog to learn a behavior, and then we practice and we build on that behavior, proofing it is what we call it, using distance, duration, distractions, and difficulty. So I want you to ask yourself, can my puppy focus for two seconds? How about from 20 feet away? How about with a distraction that's moving slowly? We need to start at the basics with each of those, a short distance, short duration, simple distractions, um, easy difficulty level, right? We start easy difficulty level, we progress to a harder difficulty level. So success builds confidence, and confidence is going to fuel focus in your dog. Now, when your puppy disengages, we don't want to scold them. I don't want you to repeat the cue. Don't say sit, sit, sit, sit. Uh, don't get louder and louder. Instead, recognize they're too close to the distraction. So you need to increase distance. Maybe lower your expectations as well, right? When you go from your house, quiet room, to an outside location, the expectations are going to be different there. We need to remember there's a lot happening. Maybe we need to let our puppy do a little sniffari as we first get to that new location. Let them sniff the area, then they'll be able to give you some of their focus. So keep those expectations realistic. And then try to get your dog to re-engage with movement or a game. Play is really powerful, and your dogs naturally love movement. So if you can put those two things together, you can get your dog to focus on you. Focus isn't something that we are demanding from our dog. It's something that we are cultivating and teaching them how to do no matter what environment they're in. So if there's one thing I want you to remember from today, it's this your puppy isn't bad at focusing, they're just in training. And every moment of engagement is a rep. Every successful check in strengthens that muscle that we're working on building. And over time, with patience and consistency, you'll hear me say that a lot. Your puppy will learn that no matter what's happening out there, my person is worth paying attention to. All right, you guys, thanks for being here today. Thanks for listening. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Happy training.