Getting your dog’s attention and focus goes beyond having her perk her ears when you say her name right before a walk or at dinner time.
Teaching your dog to focus on you builds trust and aids communication, and better communication leads to positive behaviors and benefits for you and your dog.
One of the first things dog guardians should teach their dog is the dog’s name, and it’s usually so they can get their dog's attention. Training your dog to focus on you builds a communication system: when you have your dog’s attention, you can ask for more behaviors she knows. If your dog is consistently rewarded for giving you attention, she learns that giving you her focus for a moment leads to fun and positive things.
Rewarding and training focus is foundational for almost everything else you want to do with your dog. It means you will have an easier time getting your dog to listen for and respond to another cue or behavior, such as:
- redirecting her from something she shouldn’t have
- keeping her focused on you instead of a distraction during a walk
- calling her to you from across the room or yard
- Or any other behavior that you have taught her. In order to do that behavior, she needs to be paying attention to you first!
Teaching and rewarding your dog for focusing on you is also one of the building blocks needed to solve more significant behavior issues.
How to Teach Your Dog to Give Eye Contact on Cue
- You’ll need to have small food treats on hand that appeal to your dog.
- Begin by noticing when your dog naturally makes eye contact with you. Reward that behavior with a treat and the word “yes!” This is called “capturing” the desired behavior.
- As a next step, you’ll associate a cue word with the desired behavior and reward.
- With practice, the association becomes stronger, and you can add longer times and duration.
- As your dog becomes more proficient, you can practice the attention cue when there is a distraction in the environment.
Troubleshooting
- If your dog only glances at you for a second, that’s still a great start, Sustained and direct eye contact is difficult for some dogs. Train quick eye contact at first. When your dog is offering that behavior, wait just a moment or two before giving her the reward. You can build on that duration with repeated training sessions. But if you find that your dog just can’t hold eye contact, accept and reward orientation to you instead. Focus is about paying attention, it doesn’t need to involve sustained eye contact to work well as a good communicative tool.
- If your dog won’t respond to your cue or give you eye contact or attention outside, she is likely too distracted or possibly nervous in that environment. Practice indoors or in a quiet area but add some distractions, such as a family passing by. Then train with a few more distractions, such as in your garden or on your porch. Use higher value treat rewards in more difficult situations. Turn up your observation skills and reward every tiny focus your dog shows you in those most challenging environments, even an ear flick or a sideways glance toward you should be rewarded. The more you reward these micro-attention moments, the more likely your dog will be to offer you more and better attention in your next session.
