Getting attention from your dog

Getting Attention

Step one, have a pile of tasty treats cut into small bite size pieces. Pieces should be half the size of a nickel, or smaller for tiny dogs. Use tasty smelly bait. Cheese, hotdogs, left over table meats, etc.

To begin attention training, take some treats in each hand, and show the dog you have them. Don’t let her have any, but let her see that you have food in each hand. Then stand up straight and naturally, and let your hands with the food in them hang normally at your side.

Ignore any bumping, sniffing, licking, nudging, nibbling etc. of your hands. Stand still, and be quiet, but keep a close eye on the dog. You are waiting for her to look at your eyes. The SECOND she does, say YES!! in a very happy voice, and immediately feed her several treats, one right after the other from alternating hands. Each time you pop a treat in her mouth, say YES (treat) YES (treat) YES (treat). Give at least 4 treats. Remember to SMILE and be joyful when praising and treating the dog.

Then stand up again, making sure you have food in both hands, and wait on her to look again. Many puppies “get it” after the first time. Many also need more time for the lightbulb to come on, but sooner, or slightly later, it will “click” for the dog that looking at your eyes turns you into a treat machine. Hmmm. Now she thinks this is a MARVELOUS GAME. Look what I have trained this poor human to do. All I have to do is look at his eyes, and I get goodies. Yahoo.

Once you get to this point, it is obvious, because the dog will begin “throwing” eye contact at you. In other words, she will very obviously come up to you and make eye contact in order to get a reward. When it gets to this point, then when she looks you start saying her name each time. This is also the time when the rules of the game will change a bit. You will treat for longer looks. Looks in heel position. You can also introduce MILD distractions. If she looks away, you move away so she has to move to come find you to make eye contact and get treated.

Most dogs pick this up very quickly, so it’s a good way to introduce yourself and your dog to hands off operant conditioning.

Try it, and see how long it takes YOUR dog to figure out she’s training you. :D