Before you teach your dog any basic commands, such as "sit," it's very useful to teach your dog how to calmly focus on you. Some dogs are unable to learn anything before this step, because they are too busy jumping all over the place to focus on what you're saying. Luckily, calm attention is very easy to teach!
Begin by grabbing a pocketful of treats and calling your dog over. Without saying a word, show your dog a treat. If the dog becomes excited, simply ignore and wait until he calms down. Eventually, the dog will stop acting so excited, and just look up at you. This is what you are waiting for. Once the dog is calmly standing there, looking up at you, praise and treat. The first few tries may take a while, but it should only take a few times before your dog catches on and starts breezing through the exercise!
If you want to go a bit further, you can also teach the dog to associate a word with focusing on you. Just say something like "Watch me," right as your dog begins focusing on you, and then praise and treat. After many repetitions, start hiding the treat while you give the command. If your dog focuses after you've given the "watch me" command, praise and treat. If not, he doesn't yet know what the command means, so simply go back one step to giving the command while he is focusing on you.
The calm attention exercise will open up many training doors for you and your dog. Once your dog has consistently learned to focus on you, you're ready to start teaching commands, and training will be much easier!
All articles on this blog are written by Victoria Steen unless otherwise stated. They are NOT to be redistributed.
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