How to Train a Dog to Pay Attention (K9-1.com)

Before we even start obedience training with our dog, we have to be sure we can get our dog's attention, is to have a treat In order to teach this, we do an attention getting exercise where we say our dog's name, and when they look at us, they get a reward. So, the starting point for the attention getting exercise is to have a treat, it usually works easiest with treat, but you can also use a toy, and you're going to lure his attention, I have it, He's kind of nibbling on treats right now in my hand I'm going to say his name and bring the treat up to my face I'm going to reward him immediately as soon as soon as I get a split second of eye contact or, sort of, face contact. It doesn't have to be direct eye contact. But it's helpful if you do bring the treat up to your eyes. Spike (kissing sound) Good Boy!! So you'll notice that he didn't look up the first time,that I gave him his name. So, instead of repeating his name, I just made some little distracting noises like a little kissy noise or a tongue click.

I brought the treat back up to his nose to direct him back up to my face again Spike, good bo.. Spike Spike...Good boy For some dogs, if they're really food motivated, a quicker movement is better But for Spike, it seems like he responds better to a slower movement up to my face. Spike (kissy noise) (Kissy noise)... Good Boy! Good! So be nice and patient, it doesn't matter if he messes up a few times, we'll only reward him when he does a behavior that we want , which is looking up at our face.

Spike...Good boy!! Spike! (Kissy noises) (Tongue clicks) Good boy!! Good...Good job! Spike! Good boy. Spike. Good boy!! good boy. Spike, good boy...good. So I'm just looking for him to look up at my face, Spike and clearly he's just following the treat at this point of the exercise, and that's fine. That's all we want to teach him is to look in the general direction of our face, when he hears that word. Spike! Good Boy! Spike! Good Boy! You'll notice how he sometimes paws me to get the treat, you'll just ignore that behavior. Spike! Good boy! (chuckles) Good boy. If they end up jumping on you when you're when you're about to start to reward them, just start over. Spike! Good Boy! You know that you're ready to move on to the next step when you have high success rate out of the repetitions you're doing, so if you're doing 5 repetitions at a time, or 10 repetitions, You should have 4 out of 5 or 9 out of 10 repetitions where they're successfully looking up at you every time you bring the food up to your face.

Spike! Good Boy! Spike! Good Boy! Good. Spike! Good Boy! Spike! (Kissy noises)...Good boy! good...Spike! Good boy. Spike (Tongue clicks...Kissy noises.) Good boy. Good...so make sure you're not repetitively saying their name like "Spike, Spike, Spike, Spike, Spike" until you get his attention What's going to happen if you repeat their name too many times without connecting with the eye contact, and the reward, is that it starts to lose their meaning, starts to lose meaning of the word. So, you're actually diluting the affect of the command You want to make sure that when you say you have some way of reinforcing him to look at you Whether it's going back to luring them back up to your face or making some sort of a kissing noise of tongue click Spike! (Kissing noises) Good boy! Spike! Good boy, good, that time you found it at the kissing...Spike! Good boy! So, the third step here is going to be where we use the food as a distraction, and hold it out and expect the dog to look away from the food and make eye contact with you.

This is a little bit harder, so, you definitely want to make sure you're getting success at step 2 before moving on. Spike! Good boy. and then you end up feeding them the treat that they had to look away from Spike!.....(kissing noises) Spike (softly) (kissing noises) Good boy! Spike (Kissing noises)...Good Boy...good This is helpful that we're learning in distraction, even if I see something that's interesting, If I look at you I'll still get the reward, or something better Spike (Kissing noises) Good Boy, good boy, good, good boy, good. If they had done something especially good, that was really hard for them, and challenging and you want to make an impact on them, You can do something that they call "Jackpotting" where you're giving the a few treats so it really makes an impression that what they did was good. .

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