Teaching Your Dog to Pay Attention
A pre-cursor to dog training is teaching the Reward Marker. Read that blog post here!
One of the most vital skills for any dog to have is to pay attention to their guardians! This is an easy skill and can be taught through two simple exercises: Watch Me and Name Attention.
Exercise: Watch Me
This exercise not only teaches a guardian to get their dog’s attention, but also helps to keep the dog’s focus once you have their attention. The goal here is to set your dog up for long lasting success by convincing them that it’s in their best interest to offer eye contact.
Step One: Offer Attention
To start, find a low-distraction area to practice. You will be rewarding your dog for choosing to look at you.
- Clip a leash to your dog’s collar and hold it with some slack to keep them close to you.
- Wait quietly with your dog in front of you without asking for anything. The instant your dog looks at you without you prompting (ie saying their name or making noises), mark the eye contact with the word ‘yes’ or one click with a clicker. Then give your dog a food reward.
It won’t take long for your pup to start choosing to look at you more often. This is the beginning of changing your dog’s default behaviour in various situations to looking at you.
Once your pooch chooses to offer attention to you consistently (about 80% success rate) during training, it’s time to up the ante by adding a bit of distraction!
- Hold a treat up to your face to encourage eye contact.
- When your dog looks at you, mark and reward with a treat.
- Gradually move the treat a couple inches to the side of your face and wait. It may take a bit of time, but the second your dog glances away from the treat and towards your face, mark and reward.
- Continue to practice this until your pooch is looking at your face quickly, and for a progressively longer duration (from a glance, to one second, then up to a few seconds.) Remember to mark and reward your dog!
Step Two: Add the “Focus/Watch” Cue
Now that your dog is consistently offering eye attention, let’s put this skill on cue! Pick a word that you want your dog to respond to with this skill, such as “look here” or “watch me”.
- Say your cue, then hold up a treat a few inches from your face like you did in step one.
- Wait for eye contact from your pup, then mark and reward.
- Repeat, repeat, repeat!
With practice, your pooch will gradually learn that hearing the cue means to look at you. Eventually you can fade out the treat from your hand by giving the cue and waiting for eye contact from your pup!
Name Attention is the foundation for all training. If your dog won’t look at you when you say their name, they also can’t focus on what you’re trying to teach them.
One big misconception about the name cue for many people is that they believe when you say a dog’s name, the dog needs to respond by recalling to you. However, a dog’s name does not need to mean “come here.” It can simply mean “look at me and wait for further instructions.” It’s important to make this distinction. There may be times when you want your dog’s attention, but you don’t want them to come running to you.
- With your dog on a flat collar and leash, step down on the leash to keep the dog close to you. Say the dog’s name ONCE!
- If the dog doesn’t look at you, make different noises until they make eye contact. As soon as they make eye contact, mark and reward.
It’s important that you only say the dog’s name ONCE! The more you repeat the name without them looking at you, the less impact the name will have. The dog will get used to hearing it over and over and it does not mean anything.
Timing is key! The marker is like taking a snapshot of the dog’s behaviour the instant it occurs. Time your marker (a click from a clicker or verbal “yes”) to the behaviour, not to when you have a treat ready.
Patrick Chu, CPDT-KA
Behaviour Coordinator
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