To teach your dog best, keep him successful as possible. That means that if your dog can’t find your face in a particular situation, it’s just too distracting for him.
Distractions will affect your training efforts in three ways:
distance
duration
intensity
If your dog has trouble focusing it may be because:
you are too close to a distraction
you may be around the distraction for too long
the distraction may be too exciting, interesting, active, scary or conspicuous
For example, your dog may be distracted by another dog when:
you are too close to the other dog
your dog can watch the other dog for too long
the other dog is big, is bouncy, is barking, is making direct eye contact with your dog or maybe even approaching your dog
Keeping your dog successful means that you monitor his ability to focus and be comfortable around distractions.
Asking your dog to focus with distractions
Distance:
Start with distance from potentially distracting situations
How close can you be to a distraction, that your dog can find your face?
A good indication is that if your dog can do the Find my Face exercise, take their reward and then offer another focus, within a 5-count
If there is more of a delay or your dog has difficulty playing the
game at all, you’re too close.
Take a few steps away, and try again.
When your dog can offer 5 repetitions, with a 5-count or less between each one, take a couple of steps closer and build again.
When working on distance:
work for about 30 seconds to 1 minute
practice using distractions that are quiet, still, not facing your dog, not interacting with your dog in any way and are not too conspicuous
Duration:
When your dog is able to play focus games pretty close to distractions, start to build the length of each session.
Build by no more than 30 seconds at a time.
When working on duration:
practice at your starting working distance – decrease distance again gradually
practice using distractions that are quiet, still, not facing your dog, not interacting with your dog in any way and are not too conspicuous
Intensity
Now your dog is able to focus closer to distractions for a little longer – it’s time to increase the intensity of that distraction.
play Find my Face around more active distractions
When working on intensity:
practice at your starting working distance – increase distance again gradually
work for about 30 seconds to 1 minute
Combinations
As your dog improves and is able to Find your Face in and around distractions start to decrease distance while at the same time increasing duration or build intensity while decreasing distance.
This will best help you to have your dog responsive and with you in all sorts of situations.
Setting your dog (and you) up for success:
Adjust the distance, duration and intensity of exposure to distractions when working on focus exercises according to your dog’s abilities.
Use rewards that can compete with the level of distraction you are working on.
Keep the lead loose.
If your dog vocalises, lunges, jumps up on you and is too easily distracted – give your dog a break.
If the situation is too much for your dog, get him outta there!
If you haven’t trained for it, you can’t expect it!
Teaching your dog that him seeing certain stimuli (might be other dogs, people, distractions or specific situations) mean to focus on you is a real training shortcut – that means that as soon as your dog sees one of these things he immediately looks at you, gets into focus mode, and all you need to do is to reward him!
Today’s Games
Time Allowance:
Practice for 1-2 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today and tomorrow.
Family Participation:
Kids are often great dog trainers. Teach each child how to play this game safely – have your child sit in a chair to practice.
If your dog is mouthy, jumpy or likely to get over-excited it might be best for you to get the behaviours established and then bring in the kids to help with practice.
Always supervise child-dog interactions and make sure children learn to leave the dog alone when eating his rewards.
Top Tip for Today’s Training Game:
Start working on these games in really low distraction situations. What really gets your dog distracted or excited?
Might be other dogs, passing people, squirrels or interesting smells.
Well, don’t start working around those until you can ace these games in other situations first.
You will need:
Training Mix
stuff for walkies i.e. leash, collar and so on
Beginner Level Games
Passive Focus
Start this exercise by practicing some Find My Face! in a low distraction situation – this might be on a quieter street area, in a quiet spot out on your walk or in the garden.
Allow your dog to pick out things in the environment and just let them observe…
Wait for your dog to choose to find your face; YES! and reward. Repeat.
Practice this game of passive focus in mildly distracting situations.
Check out Bailey practicing some passive focus in a mildly distracting carpark, with people, vehicles, noises and sniffing to distract her:
We can’t expect our dog to be focused all the time – it’s important that we also make sure our dog gets to be a dog and have fun too!
Rather than just ending a training session or a focus exercise and ignoring your dog, give them something else to do and encourage them to enjoy off-time too.
Today’s Games
Time Allowance:
Practice for 2-4 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today.
Try fitting each short session into your routine; for example, while you wait for the kettle to boil, during the ad break of your TV show or while you wait for the computer to start up.
Family Participation:
Kids are often great dog trainers. Teach each child how to play this game safely.
If your dog is mouthy, jumpy or likely to get over-excited it might be best for you to get the behaviours established and then bring in the kids to help with practice.
Always supervise child-dog interactions and make sure children learn to leave the dog alone when eating his rewards.
Top Tip for Today’s Training Game:
Establish this exercise with your dog searching for food and then begin to transfer it to sniffing doggie areas.
This way you will always be able to give your dog some time-off to sniff, no matter where you are.
By now your dog loves finding your face and that’s going to be worked on as a default behaviour.
But, we’re also going to add a cue-word so that you can ask your dog for eye contact when needed.
Today’s Games
Time Allowance:
Practice for 1-2 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today.
Try fitting each short session into your routine; for example, while you wait for the kettle to boil, during the ad break of your TV show or while you wait for the computer to start up.
Family Participation:
Kids are often great dog trainers. Teach each child how to play this game safely – have your child sit in a chair to practice.
If your dog is mouthy, jumpy or likely to get over-excited it might be best for you to get the behaviours established and then bring in the kids to help with practice.
Always supervise child-dog interactions and make sure children learn to leave the dog alone when eating his rewards.
Top Tip for Today’s Training Game:
Your LOOK! cue is going to be used to call your dog’s attention away from different distractions, some that are very rewarding to your dog.
This means we need to take care of this cue and only use it we are certain that the dog will be able to LOOK!.
To achieve that we need to associate really really yummy treats with our LOOK! cue.
You will need:
Training Mix
toys or other high value rewards
Beginner Level Games:
Introducing the LOOK! cue:
play Find my Face a couple of times
drop at treat at your toe
when he eats the treat, and just before he lifts his head, say LOOK! in an upbeat tone
say YES! when he finds your face and drop another treat to repeat
Let’s start with teaching your dog to find your face, no matter where he is, as a default.
That means that you won’t need to ask him to give eye contact, that he will learn to choose to focus on you.
If your dog is looking for your face, think of all the behaviours, that you don’t like, he can’t do!?
Today’s Games
Time Allowance:
Practice for 1-2 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today and tomorrow.
Try fitting each short session into your routine; for example, while you wait for the kettle to boil, during the ad break of your TV show or while you wait for the computer to start up.
Family Participation:
Kids are often great dog trainers. Teach each child how to play this game safely – have your child sit in a chair to practice.
If your dog is mouthy, jumpy or likely to get over-excited it might be best for you to get the behaviours established and then bring in the kids to help with practice.
Always supervise child-dog interactions and make sure children learn to leave the dog alone when eating his rewards.
Top Tip for Today’s Training Game:
Observe your dog really closely during this exercise. We are going to reward little steps toward full-on eye contact.
If your dog has trouble, go back a couple of steps and work at the last point your dog was successful.
You will need:
Training Mix
Beginner Level Games:
Teaching Find my Face:
drop a treat right at your toe
when your dog bows their head to eat it, watch them closely
say YES! as soon as you see their head raise
drop another treat right at your toe
say YES! as soon as your dog’s head raises toward you
drop another treat right at your toe
say YES! as soon as your dog’s head raises toward your face
drop another treat right at your toe
say YES! as soon as your dog’s face meets yours
drop another treat right at your toe
say YES! as soon as your dog makes eye contact
drop another treat right at your toe
repeat
Soon your dog will be zipping his face back up to your’s after eating the dropped treat.
Calm, happy, focus is so often our training-dream; a dog who will respond even when there are distractions and who enjoys working in partnership with his person, in all sorts of situations.
We can achieve calm, happy focus in distracting situations with careful training.
By teaching your dog to focus in lower distraction situations we can continue to build on this success by carefully introducing slightly greater distraction levels in increments.
Disclaimer: this video was made for demonstration purposes only; Decker or any dog did not suffer any distress during or after this work – please don’t worry! In response to trainers who show similar scenes with their dogs wearing training collars, shock collars or training equipment, this is a dog who has been worked and trained with rewards-based training – there are no training tools or treats or toys used here at all showing that dogs trained this way can work in very distracting situations, without ‘cookies’ and through choice.
What do I need for week 4?
Training Mix, toys or other reward
your dog’s collar and leash
Kong toys or similar for pacifying
Week 4 Training Games
Find my Face
LOOK!
Go be a dog!
Environmental cues for focus
Adding and building distractions
What’s my dog learning?
focusing on my person is very rewarding
I learn that to access distractions, I can check in with my person first
I can check in with my person even though I would really like to sniff, run around and explore and I can wait to access the things I want.
My self-control is developing – I can’t have all the things I want, when I want them.
Passing in or out of a door is a cue to check in with my person and wait patiently.
Learning to stop and check in with my person will keep me safer.
Of course calm, happy focus doesn’t need to be a training dream – it can be a training reality.
You can download a more printer friendly, but abbreviated version of this week’s exercises here.
So Week 3 wasn’t tough enough? Let’s add some zen to your recalls!
Today’s Games
Zen recalls teach your dog to choose you over all the other distractions in the environment – and if he does choose you he is rewarded with access to those very distractions.
Remember, distractions are just rewards that your dog wants but you would prefer he didn’t!
Time Allowance: Practice for 1-2 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today.
Really do keep sessions short on these exercises! The self-control bank account depletes fast and your dog will need some time to recuperate so make sure to give them a good break too.
Family Participation: This exercise is for adults only!
Once your dog can ace this week’s zen exercises, you can begin to introduce children so that you dog learns some zen with them too.
Always supervise child-dog interactions and make sure children learn to leave the dog alone when eating his rewards.
Top Tip for Today’s Training Games: Make sure to set up the exercise so that your dog is successful.
Remember, if your dog gets stuck, think of ways that you can make it easier for him to succeed and then build again more gradually.
Zen Recalls
Beginner Level Challenge
Use your dog’s favourite toy or rewards in a little bowl.
Practice this game in a quiet place, so indoors or in the garden at quiet times.
It’s handy to have an assistant for this game, to place our distractions, but not essential.
Get set up with your dog on lead. Have the distraction placed at the furthest end of the space in which you work.
Approach the distraction and as soon as your dog notices it, stop and call your dog.
Move backwards, but only use the lead very gently if at all, encouraging your dog to come toward you and move away from the distraction.
As soon as your dog gets to you, say YES! and excitedly bring him over to claim his distraction.
You can apply this to walking your dog too – pressure on the lead turns the red light on and everything stops. Wait for your dog to relieve the pressure to continue your walk.
Zen for grabbing food or other dropped items off the floor
Zen for stealing socks, tissues or other stolen items
Work through zen levels 1-4 using your dog’s favourite stealables
It’s up to your dog to choose zen
Teaching your dog to be a zen-dog is about teaching him that he always has choices.
Your dog can grab that treat during Level 1 or 2 games – he’s quicker and more motivated than you are – but you are showing him that there are other things he can do to get what he wants.
Zen-dogs get the things they like and it’s their choice!
You thought Level 3 was tough? You ain’t seen nothing yet!
Today’s Games
Time Allowance: Practice for 1-2 minute sessions and then take a break. Have a few sessions today.
Try fitting each short session into your routine; for example, while you wait for the kettle to boil, during the ad break of your TV show or while you wait for the computer to start up.
Really do keep sessions short on these exercises! The self-control bank account depletes fast and your dog will need some time to recuperate so make sure to give them a good break too.
Family Participation: This exercise is for adults only!
Top Tip for Today’s Training Games: Notice that we don’t ask our dog to do anything here at all – no talking!
This is about self-control – we are working on a default here so you never need to ask for polite behaviour when you have things your dog wants – he just does it!
Remember, if your dog gets stuck with any of our exercises this week, think of ways that you can make it easier for him to succeed and then build again more gradually.
when your dog moves back from the container, take one food reward out and place on the floor beside the container
(be ready to cover the container and the food on the floor if your dog approaches)
pick that food off the floor and put back in the container, feed one food reward from the container to your dog
repeat using different combinations of placing food on the floor, putting it back into the container, feeding from the floor and feeding from the container
Really short sessions for this one as it’s very tough!
Check out our compilation of some Level 4 Zen-dogs:
You have only just started so don’t stop now.
AniEd Ireland 