It's all Greek to your puppy!

The hardest thing for me to do when I am helping others with training their puppies is "training" their family.  With puppies, the cuteness factor helps to scramble the brains of otherwise smart and logical people.  The drive to be successful with their puppy's training often makes people panic when they try to learn how to give even a single cue.  For example, I always start with explaining it's crucial to keep it simple and keep it consistent.  Commands must especially follow this formula.  So, when we start teaching a puppy to sit, I recommend one single word (usually "Sit") coupled with one consistent hand gesture.  It really doesn't matter what the verbal and hand commands are, just that whatever you use, use it all the time to mean the same thing, and don't use several different commands to mean the same thing.

However, after explaining this clearly to a puppy's family and starting a puppy off with a base of learning to sit with the command "Sit," it's not unusual for something else to happen.  The puppy's family member will say, "Sit!"  "Down!"  "No!" "Please Sit!"  "Sit down!"*  The puppy will usually lose interest at this point and and not only not sit, but his attention will start wandering away.  But put yourself the puppy's place.  The puppy is learning a new language.  This would be tantamount to you not knowing English and someone saying to you, "Get me a soda!"  "A beverage!"  "No, not that! Get me a pop!"  Since you don't know what any of those words mean, it's impossible for you to know what to do.  And if this is paired with the person flailing their arms or jumping around, it's probable that you might just give up too.

So, if you are determined to train you puppy, think about the fact that it will really help if you are equally focused on disciplining yourself as well.