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Teaching a Dog “Look at Me:” Capture It

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Teaching a Dog to Focus

Dog Training
Click and treat for eye contact. Good boy!

If your dog is a “Looky Lou,” meaning he gawks at everyone but you, take a couple of minutes and teach your dog “look at me” instead. Yes, it will make your life easier. 🙂

Training Your Dog to Look at You

Grab super yummy treats, a clicker and your leashed dog of course. When teaching your dog a new behavior, it’s usually easier to keep him leashed so he’ll stay with you instead of becoming distracted by something else. Over time, you don’t have to leash your dog any longer as he’ll learn the presence of a clicker means training time!

Practice each section a few times a day for one minute. After three days, move onto the next section.

Capture Good Behavior

  • Holding a treat in your left hand and your clicker and leash in your right hand, slowly move your left hand away from you.
  • Your dog will likely watch your treat hand so wait for your dog to look back at you instead.
  • The moment your dog’s eyes look back at you, even for an instant, click and give her the treat in your left hand.

Tip: Refrain from staring at your dog’s face. Instead, focus on his chin, as direct eye contact is creepy for dogs and humans alike. 🙂

After a few sessions, you may notice your dog ignoring your “treat moving hand” and focusing on you instead, in which case click and treat. This means you’re doing an excellent job!

VIDEO: Teaching a Dog “Look at Me” Step One

READ ALSO: Teaching a Dog “Look at Me:” Adding a Cue

How to Teach Your Dog to Focus

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Teaching Your Dog to Focus Around Distractions

How to Teach Your Dog to Focus
You’ll need lots of yummy treats to get started.

Once your dog reliably looks at you when she hears her name, it’s time to add distractions. This is the hard part because teaching a behavior is not easy. Now, it’s time to take it to the real world!

Introduce Distractions

You’ll need a clicker and lots of super yummy treats.

  • Practice indoors. Say your dog’s name when she’s looking at something random, such as a toy or the window. Click when she looks at you and toss the treat by your feet so she comes over to get it.
  • Outside, while on leash, practice for a few days.
  • After one to two weeks, bring yummy treats and your clicker in the backyard and practice. Squirrels and other dogs romping around are hard to resist so use yummy treats and attach her to a leash, if needed.

RELATED: Dog Training Treats

Problem Solving

When adding distractions, move slowly. If you’re a singer, just starting out, it would be tough to sing in front of a stadium full of people, right? Start slowly by singing in front of family, friends, small gatherings and such. This builds confidence and ensures you have a full understanding of expectations.

  • If your dog ignores the cue, recall her to you and reward profusely! Clip a leash to her collar and try again.
  • Distance is your friend: Practice 20 feet from other dogs and playing children, and slowly move toward the distractions over time.

Focusing at Dog Parks

This is a tough one and may take months to perfect, as dog parks are the mecca of distractions! 🙂 Again, this is equivalent to singing at Madison Square Garden. You must hone your craft before practicing it in front of the world. Personally, I’m not a fan of dog parks–too many rude dogs there. Anyhow, try:

  • Practicing outside about 20 feet from dog parks for a few sessions.
  • Slowly moving closer to the park. If your dog becomes distracted, back up and try again.

VIDEO: Teaching Your Dog Focus: Introducing Distractions

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Teaching a Dog “Look at Me:” Adding a Cue

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Train Your Dog to Look at You

Teaching a Dog to Look at Me
It’s time to add a cue!

Once your dog will look at you, instead of holding treats in your left hand, it’s time to move forward by adding a cue.

How to Add a Cue

It’s best and much quicker to add a cue to behavior after your dog understands what to do. Choose a cue meaning “look at me instead of everything else.” I suggest saying your dog’s name. The cue doesn’t really matter, as long as you use the same one each time.

  • Holding a treat in your left hand while the leash and clicker are in your right hand, move both hands away from your face. Basically, you’re increasing the distraction level.
  • As you move both hands away from you, say your dog’s name once. The moment she looks at you, click and give her the treat.
  • Keep practicing. Try moving your hands above your head, waist level and so on. Say your dog’s name once and wait for her to choose looking at you instead. It’s worth the wait. 🙂

RELATED: How to Train Your Dog Around Distractions

Problem Solving

If your dog ignores her name, wait for her to look at you. If she doesn’t look at you after three seconds, then she’s probably confused or really distracted.

  • Use super yummy treats. Remember, treats are your dog’s paycheck so the higher you pay, the faster your dog will learn.
  • Take a step back from distractions. You may have moved too quickly too soon. This is normal. Think about learning how to drive. It’s not fair expecting you to merge on a 16 lane highway packed with traffic during your second week of driver’s ed. 🙂
  • At times, your dog will sit and look around instead. Remember “sit” is usually your dog’s default behavior when confused. She’s thinking, “I don’t know what she wants so I’ll sit. That usually gets me treats.” Instead, wait her out. See if she will over something else, which is usually “look at me.” If, at anytime, your dog becomes confused, take a step back to “capturing look at me.”

VIDEO: Teaching a Dog “Look at Me:” Adding a Cue

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How to Train a Puppy to Give Items Back

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Teach a Puppy to Give

Puppy Trade Game

Train a Puppy to Give Items Back
Teach your puppy to trade the sock for a yummy treat. willeecole/Deposit Photos

Puppies were not born with nor read, the pet owner’s guide to polite manners so it’s important to teach them the trade game. Would you give up the $100 bill you found at the park? Probably not. 🙂

Trade Game

When puppies or dogs find something, they intend to keep it. Guarding resources is a natural instinct. The more you have, the more likely you’ll survive. Plus, puppies and dogs will pick up items, such as socks, to instigate play like chase. Oh, it’s tempting to chase a puppy with your sock. We panic and think, “Oh my god, they will swallow it!” and we continue chasing. Not fun huh?!

Instead, teach your puppy or dog how to trade instead. And say goodbye to crazy chases around the dining room table. 🙂

RELATED: Resource Guarding

How to Teach Your Dog to Give Items Back

Whenever your puppy or dog picks up a sock, shoe or a child’s toy, instead of chasing him, try:

  • Stop moving. Your puppy will probably stop moving too.  He’s not sure what’s going on.
  • Walk to the refrigerator and select a yummy treat. These treats must be yummy. They should behoove your puppy to trade the smelly sock for something better.
  • Approach your puppy. If she runs away, stand still.
  • Say “trade” and show her the yummy treat. She probably smells it already, but thinks the treat is for you and not her.
  • Remain still and wait for your puppy to drop the sock. If she continues running with the sock, your treat needs to be yummier. She’s saying, “Nah, I would rather keep my stinky sock instead.”
  • As she drops the sock, say yes and toss the yummy treat in the opposite direction of the sock.
  • When she runs for the treat, pick up the sock.

Now, you’re not rewarding your dog for stealing socks. You’re rewarding her for giving it up.  

VIDEO: Teach Your Dog the Trade Game

Taking Items From a Puppy’s Mouth?

On rare occasions, such as a puppy snatching up a cooked chicken bone or medication, I would remove it from her mouth. Now, as I explain to my puppy people, don’t make this a habit. If you do, your puppy will learn to swallow an item quickly, usually as you approach. She knows you’re going to take it away!

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Help! My Dog Refuses to Walk

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What to Do When Your Dog Refuses to Walk

Dog Refuses to Walk
Learn tips to un-pancake your dog!

Most likely, you’ve had this happen during walks. When you’re heading home after a fun walk in the park, your healthy dog flattens himself to the ground, refusing to walk any farther. I call this “pancake dog,” meaning a dog will splat himself against the ground and refuse to walk.

Now, if your dog is limping, ill or injured, this doesn’t apply. Bring your dog to the vet ASAP.

Why Dogs Refuse to Walk

Below are a few reasons why a dog refuses to walk and flatten himself onto the ground.

Fearful

About 50% of the time, I notice puppies and dogs refuse to move forward due to fear. Usually, their bodies are lying backwards away from whatever is frightening them. This happens because a puppy or dog is scared of whatever he is approaching at the time. This could be another dog, person, narrow space, barrier or she has not learned how to walk on a leash. Honestly, it could be anything.

Never force or drag a dog past a scary object. Instead, stop to give your dog some time to process the situation. If she’s still scared, use the Hansel and Gretel technique described below. For smaller dogs, it may be easier to pick them up and walk past the scary thing. At home, practice confidence building games, such as Touch the Goblin.

RELATED: How to Train Fearful Dogs

Don’t Let the Fun End

Dog Training Tips
Learn tips to get your dog happily moving forward!

And this is the other 50%. 🙂 Puppies and dogs are smart. They’ve learned that splatting against the ground and holding firm keeps them in their favorite environment longer. Dogs will refuse to move usually once you turn to head home. I’ve had puppies splat after class. They don’t want to leave. 🙂

The Hansel and Gretel technique will get them moving. Also, practice randomly walking away from the park and then rewarding good behavior (non-splatting) by walking back to the park for another game of fetch. No one wants the fun to end, but by making the act of going home fun, you don’t have to worry about pancaking along the way.

Un-Pancaking Your Dog

The goal of this dog training exercise is to get your dog up and willingly move forward, which builds confidence. Studies have shown giving dogs choices and allowing them to choose is just as reinforcing as treats—something to ponder!

Hansel and Gretel

Unlike the children’s fable, you’re moving your dog away from the monster not toward it. Sprinkle yummy treats in a trail past the scary thing. Using super yummy treats will really help. Your dog (or puppy) will eat the treats while keeping an eye on the monster. But he’s moved himself, which is a big step forward!

Plus, pairing yummy treats with something scary, well, makes things less scary. If you were stuck in an elevator, you would probably freak out. But what if you were stuck in an elevator with a dozen delicious cupcakes or a six-pack of your favorite beer? Not so bad, huh? You’ll indulge while waiting for someone to rescue you. 🙂

Touch the Goblin

During this game, you’ll need a clicker and lots of yummy treats. Introduce something odd in your home, such as the vacuum or folding step stool (both usually freak dogs out). Practice each step 10 times and then move onto the next one. If your dog becomes frightened, take 1 to 2 steps back.

Never move, wiggle or touch the scary thing during training sessions. This just makes the scary thing even more terrifying to your dog.

  1. Click and treat when your dog looks at the scary object.
  2. Now, click and treat when your dog walks over to the scary thing.
  3. Usually, after a few sessions, dogs will try to touch the scary thing with craned necks, wide eyes and splayed out back legs. Click and treat this behavior. They are being pretty darn brave right now.
  4. Say “touch the goblin” as they lean forward, trying to touch it with their muzzle.
  5. After a few touches, your dog will exude confidence. He successfully slayed the dragon so be proud! We call this building confidence. 🙂

After a few “touch the goblin” sessions with different scary things, you’ll notice your dog will likely march right up and touch the next scary thing. He’s learning that scary things will not harm him.

WATCH: How to Get a Dog Moving When He Refuses to Walk

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Dog Training Nation is a dog training blog for pet owners and dog lovers. We cover a range of topics from puppy socialization tips to dog aggression to dog health. It is our hope you share our content to make the world a better place for dogs.

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