Getting our dog to pay attention to us is essential for good communication between the two of us, as well as for their safety outside the home. Once you have taught your dog to recognize his name, you should start training him to pay attention to you.
In this article on our site we will teach you how to make my dog pay attention to you without using signals, thus ensuring that the dog is checking in on us on a regular basis, a very useful training that can prevent, for example, your dog from getting lost. Find out below how to get started!
How to teach a dog to pay attention?
Unlike other basic dog obedience exercises, teaching your dog to pay attention will not train in a place free of distractions, but will take advantage of distractionsdaily from the first day of training. Although the training of this exercise is done in formal sessions, you can carry it out taking advantage of your dog's walks and other situations of daily life.
In this case we are going to use the clicker to work with the dog, for that reason, if you want to use it too, we advise you to dedicate a few days before charging the dog's clicker for training.
Follow this step by step to teach your dog to pay attention:
- Go with your dog to a place where there are some not very intense distractions. Your dog should be distracted, but not so distracted that he never looks at you. If the place is closed and safe for your dog, you can release it. If the place is open (streets, parks, etc.) your dog must be on a leash.
- Stand still and wait. Your dog will sniff the ground, look at anything that catches his eye, explore the area, and do whatever he pleases. At some point, however, he will look at you. At that precise moment, click and give him a piece of food.
- Then take a short walk to allow your dog to explore the environment (this will also act as a reinforcer). Wait until he is distracted again and repeat the procedure.
- If your dog is loose in a closed place, you can use the clicker to click. If your dog is on a leash, you may find it easier to click your tongue or use the release command.
Note that timing (the exact moment when we click) is extremely important for this exercise. Perhaps it is more important than for the other exercises, because the first few times your dog will only look at you for a moment, and it may only be an accidental glance when exploring the environment. So make sure you use the correct conditioned reinforcer to get good timing. If you need a clicker for this, find a way to do the first few sessions indoors. Or, if your release command seems too long, try a tongue click.
Practice this exercise twice a day in short sessions and don't worry about the number of repetitions you do. What matters is that your dog begins to realize that looking at you from time to time has good consequences Therefore, you can do very short sessions, with three repetitions or one little more. Of course, if you can do 10-rep sets, do it.
Since you do this exercise with distractions, you can take advantage of your dog's walks. Every time you take him for a walk, stop a few times along the route and wait for your dog to look at you. Then click, give him a piece of food and continue walking. Also take advantage of clicking and giving your dog a little piece of food every time he looks at you when you are walking
Possible problems with teaching your dog to pay attention
If a long time goes by without your dog looking at you spontaneously, check the distractions that exist in the area. Perhaps they are very intense and you need a place with milder distractions. You can also move a couple of steps to the side. Many dogs pay attention when that happens.
Make sure you don't confront your dog with things or situations that scare him. In that case, he will not pay attention to you, but the only thing he will want to do is escape. In order for your dog to stop being scared of something, you have to desensitize and countercondition him to it, but that's a different topic and isn't part of the paying attention exercise.
It is very important that you practice this exercise in different places, but not inside your house. Few dogs are more annoying than those that follow you and stare at you all the time inside the house. Practice in the garden, on the street, in the elevator hall and anywhere you can think of, but not inside your house.
Precautions when teaching your dog to pay attention
Avoid risky places that scare your dog. Also avoid distractions that will overstimulate your pup, or he won't be able to pay attention to you. If you're practicing outside with your dog on a leash, pay attention to his body language and anticipate any pulling on the leash. It is dangerous for a medium or large dog to run away when it is attached to the leash, because it can cause severe damage with the pull, or make you fall.
