How to keep Papillon dog interested in treat & clicker training?

You should have a variety of treats of different value. So, when I'm training a pup, young dog or a new behavior, I start out using string cheese. If that isn't working, I go to a higher value (stinkier) treat like ready made Italian style turkey meatballs or ready to eat roasted chicken meat, which I'll also get that's flavored.

You have a puppy, the 1 hour of play time before training may be to much for her. A 30 minute walk to tire her out a bit is OK. Also, training a young dog should not be a full hour of constant working, as they simply can't handle it. There should be short breaks in the training class, where you play with your dog, be it tug or a something a game that you initiate (not playing with other dogs.

The dog is interested in what the instructor has, because it's something different than what you have...Grass is always greener scenario.

Lastly, don't do to many repetition. If the pup does the exercise correctly 2 or 3 times, stop. Don't make the pup repeated it over and over again. Some dogs can do that, other can't.

I've taken Attention classes with all my dogs. This type of class starts teaching attention, along with introducing some of the exercises required for competitive obedience. We currently have a class of 8. So half the class works, others take a break and then visa versa. The dogs have some down time, even if having the dog lay besides you, quietly chewing on something. These are alll young dogs in the class, short attention span/

You should be using training you dog for a short time every day, if you have just one session a week an hour is too long.

I will paste some ideas for tasty treats.

Cooked Chicken - Iceland and Aldi have pieces of cooked chicken it’s available in bags which are about the size of a bag of frozen chip. The pieces of chicken are the size of a frozen chip. Dogs love this, I defrost the amount which I need for a training session and for my GSD I chop the pieces into the size of my little finger nail It’s cheaper than commercial dog treats and much healthier.

Black Pudding - Is fantastic. It's available from butchers and supermarkets. Chop it up, bag it and freeze it.

Cheese - Buy a large block of HARD cheese, chop it up, bag it and freeze it.

Sausage - It's available as hot dogs in tins or you can simply buy ordinary sausage from the butchers, cook it, slice it and then freeze it. Supermarkets also sell cooked smoked sausage which you can also chop up and freeze

Liver cooked in the oven, diced and frozen. I

Liver cake - l/2 Ib liver, l/2 Ib plain flour, 1 egg, several cloves of garlic.

Liquidize the liver and squash up the garlic, mix everything together OR just put everything into a food processor. The consistency should be the same as a Christmas cake. Cook in a Swiss roll tin, cool and cut in to treat size pieces and freeze.

JFC, you are not teaching a human, you are teaching an animal with the intelligence similar to a 2-3 year old child. Your training sessions should be 5-10 minutes longs and TONS OF FUN. You can scatter these training sessions through the day.

And always stop before she wants to, it puts you into the leader position and will make her want to do more.

And make sure your release clue is sad and boring, as if you were saying: "It's the end of fun time, now go and sniff the around in the boring grass and do boring dog things" instead of "Woohooo! You are free to go!"

As for deciding the value of rewards: that's when KNOWING your dog comes into play. You should know which treats and toys she goes absolutely crazy for, which she loves - sort of middle ground, which are just ok. When you are teaching something new, when raise the difficulty (add distractions, move to a different location to practice) you use higher value treats.

When she knows the tasks, you can keep her on her toes by switching rewards: sometimes a high value treat, sometimes a lower value treat, sometimes a toy, sometimes just a praise etc. This can also lead to phasing out rewards for that exercise.

Try and make most training treats bite sized, so she doesn't spend time with chewing.

You can also make a lot of things into a game for her, instead of boring lessons. Putting on collar Game, Look at me Game, Unclipping the leash Game, Trading Game, Grabbing Game, Look at that! Game, Tug-o-war (it's also great to teach "Pull!" "Drop it!", trading, adding a cool-down period before your dog gets too excited), figuring out what the dog she is supposed to do before and after stepping out the door (a.k.a. teaching default behavior) - some dogs love figuring out things for themselves and so on. Instead of doing many repetitions you should do only few repetitions of a number of these exercises, make your dog wonder what fun "game" is coming next.

An hour is a long time for a puppy to focus on ANYTHING. 5-10 minute sessions are best. Plus, she's probably tired after 2 hours of playtime. I've taken plenty of classes, and the purpose of them is to learn how to train your dog, and what to practice at home. If you overdo it, your puppy will lose interest or even shut down. Lower your expectations and focus on learning HOW to train.

You aren't supposed to train for a whole hour at a time. You're supposed to train a couple of minutes here and there throughout the days, as the opportunity arises. You'll get better results with many short sessions scattered through the days of the whole week than one long session once a week.