How To Teach Your Dog Eye Contact And Attention

This video by Training Positive is a great video on teaching a dog to learn eye contact the right way. One of the most basic lessons in terms of teaching your dog is to teach them by their name. This means that when you call it by name, it should stop whatever it is doing and make eye contact with you. The dog’s name must be clear when you mention it and must not be too similar to any other words that get mentioned a hundred times a day. As your dog progresses along with proper training, it will even know whether its name is being called or simply being mentioned in a sentence.

In the dog training video, the trainer starts by luring the dog using a treat and holding it near his eyes. The dog will follow the treat eventually. You have to reward it as soon as it starts moving its head. This will help the dog realize that it’s starting the right way. Repeat this step until the dog gets used to following your hand. The next step is to remove the treat and let your dog rely on your hand gestures. When your dog improves on this step, the final step is to fade out the hand signals and let your dog rely on the verbal command.

You can start training your dog inside your house so that there will be fewer distractions. As soon as your dog seems to have mastered it within your house, try doing this in different environments. You can train in your backyard, at the park, or other locations. Being able to train your dog in different surroundings can help it improve its attentiveness to you. This will also help your dog to fight out all of the distractions and master the eye contact command. There will be moments that your dog might tend to lose focus but here is where your training comes into play. Take note that a well-trained dog easily obeys when its named is called. By being able to teach your dog this important command, over time you can achieve eye contact with it almost anywhere you take it.

A hyperactive dog might need more time to learn this command. That’s normal. The important thing is that you stay focused on training and never let any frustrations get the best of you. Always remember why you are training your dog in the first place.

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