I can totally relate to your situation. I have a foster that has a very low energy level, she does chew... LOVES sticks and shreds toys but still cutting teeth. I have been trying to train but spent about half the time just standing her up She's just over 6 months and she is just now playing chase with the other dogs. She is still a snuggler but energy level is increasing. This pup is not food or toy motivated and happy to just sit or lay at your side or sit on your feet and leaning back on your legs to look up at you. LOL it's really cute but not at all what I'm looking for when I ask for a sit.
So we work on say sit/down or stand then do recalls and heel. Getting her up and moving is the secret. So we work on something a couple of tries then throw a toy and work on retrieves. Or work on something a couple of tries and take off running for a quick game of chase/recalls. We have been doing this for the last couple of weeks and her attention has improved greatly. Her ability to want to try for longer is also increasing. So your trainer is right, her energy level will increase. It may never be at warp speed but it will increase. It's also getting cooler and could be she just melted in the heat?
Bottom line is some pups just need more time to grow. I must admit that she is so easy to live with she doesn't really need all the obedience training to keep her out of trouble. She's really a delightful pup and loves to just hang with you all the time... the perfect companion!!!

 

Cosmo is certainly a beautiful pup. What I remember of adolescence from our previous three Goldens is not so much wild energy but more testing the limits such as "forgetting" commands, pretending to not hear us, and generally acting more independent. Our four month old Woody is more medium energy and very biddable so I'm curious to see what his puppy adolescence brings. Your sweet guy might sail right through his teenaged period with no issues.

 

Hah! That about sums up our very first training session. Half of the training was just motivating him to get up off the floor instead of being a little lazy butt. He's food motivated, but not enough to get him to do something that he REALLY doesn't want to do. At his session yesterday, we were learning several new things so the trainer spent an extra 20 minutes or so with him really trying to solidify the correct way to continue his training, (mostly for me, I'm the slow learner, not him, haha!) and by the end he was not interested in participating whatsoever. He took a 3 hour nap when we got home. He's really good when we take him into places like Petsmart or Rural King, but he's honestly not big on walks outdoors. I think that may have to do with the fact that it's still quite warm in Florida, and he's just not a fan of the heat. I'm really hoping he'll want to walk more outside once the weather breaks.

 

Congratulations on Cosmo, he's a good looking boy.

 

My almost 14 week old female is calm until she has her final feeding of the day (around 8-8:30 pm) and then until around 9:45-10 she’s crazy. She is not treat motivated either. Sit, down, and stay were hand signals with no treats for about two weeks. She likes her kennel also (typically will enter 5 out of 7 nights a week) on her own because it’s her safe space. But her “wild” child comes out when young kids approach her without asking if they may pet her. And I’ve had to start asking parents or kids to please ask me because she’s excited. And I need to make sure she remains calm.

 

He's a beautiful puppy! I found that turkey lunch meat (Hillshire farms, paper thin) keeps her attention when we try something new. Tiny pieces and works best on an empty stomach. But even with this, we have never gotten more than 10 minutes of "work" so we just do it more often. She's been really good about going for walks but I usually bring an adult dog that LOVES to go for walks along to increase desire. She will get more interested as she matures.

But 2 months ago I took to the state park, it was just us and tried to play running games... try is the important word here. I took all the fun stuff, snacks and she just found a stick and watched the other dog chase the frisbee. No interest in joining the activity. But now she is wanting to be a part of things, for a little while anyway. She learns quickly but just getting her to actually sit on her butt is a challenge... she has a very lazy sit, sort of slops over to one side.

If I wasn't interested in doing obedience trials I wouldn't bother teaching more than a good recall, sits and downs. You are the envy of everyone on the forum that is struggling with landshark puppies or dogs that pull on walks!

 

He's a handsome little fellow. At 5 months you might already have a pretty good idea of his basic temperament and he's just a relaxed pup. If you're having trouble with him not being food motivated enough when training consider trying very high value treats like little pieces of string cheese, chicken, or hot dogs. Regular training treats aren't enough for certain aspects of training (like loose leash walking) for my girl but an all beef hot dog and string cheese will work miracles.

 

Cosmo is real cutie! My now senior boy was a very calm puppy, and never really 'busted loose' and became wild child at any point in his life. So in lieu of having to 'tame' him, the challenge was motivating him, if he didn't see the 'point' in any given exercise, or doing it for more than a few times, it simply didn't interest him, some might have called him 'stubborn' or even 'defiant'. But the truth is he was and is a brilliant dog, and very sensitive dog, my challenge was to figure out how to motivate him.

Take advantage of the opportunity you have now, while you have his 'attention' - to teach Cosmo the skills you want him to have and choose to use when he is an older dog - fill up his 'tool box' with all the 'right' stuff. So that if or when that 'wild child' shows up one day, you both will be prepared. Every dog makes mistakes sometimes, but if we have given them the opportunity to learn and build the appropriate skills, and they have a strong history of being rewarded for using them, the better the chances are that they will choose to use them.

 

He is so handsome! Mine is 6.5 months and is a pretty calm puppy as well. Not as calm as yours, but she is a piece of cake compared to when my Beagle was a puppy. Enjoy your little one!

 

Cosmo is a real sweetie!!! Good luck with him!!

 

Love the name [emoji846]

Cosmo was the name of our 14 year old Tri-color Shetland Sheepdog that passed 2 years ago.


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I remember the day we got our Golden. She was so calm that we were afraid that she was sick. My mom who was a cat person was so impressed with her. She has never destroyed anything and was fully potty trained in 7 days. Now almost 2 years old she is still a very calm and obidient dog. We have taken her everywhere in our summer holidays and everyone has been so impressed with her !

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My girl was super calm as a little puppy too, it’s why we chose her out of 6 females. She’s just turned 1 and passed her therapy dog test this past week. She’s soooo easy to train and picks up tricks so fast.
Her littermate lives one town over (the puppy we almost chose, second choice). We get them together to play and her sister has so much more energy and her attention span is much shorter than our girls.
It’s good to have a calm one in my opinion. It’s more uncommon and has a lot of benefits.

 

Everyone here has such pretty pups! I love seeing all of their pictures while scrolling through. Cosmo is our first dog (as adults) so this forum has been a huge help as I navigate the waters of the golden world. Just when I think I have most things figured out, he throws me a curve ball, haha!

I'm still trying to find high value treats that motivate him when he's not interested in training. I think the answer is to keep his training sessions short and sweet. He's SO good for the first 10 minutes or so and after that, he just wants to lay around and play with toys or go back to napping. He'll work a little longer when we're with his trainer, but just with me, forget it!

We had a setback last night in the crate. He already doesn't really LOVE being in there, but once he's in, he's fine and sleeps all night. We have to physically put him in the crate, which is getting harder to do as he gets bigger, but so far we just haven't figured out anything to get him to go in on his own. We've tried treats, toys, crate games, spending time in the room that the crate is in, putting the cover on the crate, uncovering the crate, feeding near the crate (he'd rather starve than actually eat his food IN the crate.) I don't know what I'm doing wrong... but I digress. Yesterday Cosmo had some diarrhea, but nothing super concerning. When I woke up this morning, I found Cosmo had diarrhea in his crate, poor thing. He's never had any accidents in his crate before, so I don't think he was feeling well and just couldn't help it. I wish he would've barked or indicated that he needed out. Now I'm nervous that it'll happen again tonight. He hasn't had anymore diarrhea all day, but he also hasn't pooped at all. Fingers crossed for a better night.