One of my puppy training books says to not use puppy's name unless you have some specific thing for him to do.  That's so he will learn when his name is spoken he is to look to you to see what is coming next, like supper maybe, or a walk or a play.  Something good.  The book says if you natter away, using his name without consequence he will learn to ignore you.  That seems reasonable and logical to me so I try to do it.  When I tell the OH about some cute thing puppy did that day I say "the little man" or "the wee guy", not his name.

When Jet got older and we had to leave the house we began leaving the radio on for her and the cats.  We heard it kept the pets company and might also convey the impression we were at home, a safety feature to guard against break-in.

You can see our query coming, can't you?  Does the radio on also convince puppy the human voice drones on and on with no import to him?  Thus helping him learn to ignore it?  What do you think?

I think that any dog can distinguish between the drone of the radio or tv, and a genuine human "in the room" voice, and frankly it will make absolutely NO difference to training. I have TV and/or radio on if I am in, and radio on sometimes if I am out, and my Delilah is very obedient, and has her KC GOLD obedience. Incidentally I use her name all the time, and that doesnt stop her from knowing when i want her attention either! I use the "look" command if I want her to look at me, and her name WITH a command  for all other things. Using her name a lot hs not caused her to ever ignore me. Of course if you DO want your dog to follow a command, you MUST give the command as well as the name....ive seen loads of people just randomly shouting the dogs name at it for example when they want it to recall...whereas the dog didnt have a clue what the owner wanted :rolleyes: .

I leave the radio on for my dogs if I'm out. I don't think it makes any difference to how they respond to a person who's there and speaking to them - after all, the radio or TV will not infrequently be on when I'm home anyway. :) If that helps.

I don't think its the name i think they learn certain words e.g. sit, down, stay etc

I leave the radio on for ours

the radio on 24/7 here plus it on when the puppies are born and a cd tape with all the different sounds,

no different in my dogs