As a professional dog trainer teaching anywhere from 7-10 classes a week, and working with countless behavior issues, by far the most common issue I see is lack of attention to the owner.The dogs learn that they can get more reinforcement from the environment than they can from their people, and that’s where all the trouble starts.
When the dog gets more pleasure from engaging with the environment than the person, I know the relationship is damaged. The damage is almost always NOT a result of harsh punishment, but usually a result of old fashioned thinking, “I must be in charge all the time and dominate my dog.”
This simply isn’t the case and in fact, the opposite is true. Think of a horse. If you put a bridle or halter on a horse and try to force or pull them, they will resist. It’s the same thing for dogs. Dogs respond much better when you don’t try to force them to do things. We want our dogs to want to work with us, but how do you get to that point? That’s the million dollar question.
It all starts with engagement. Engagement is getting your dog to want to be with you, working and having fun. If you have engagement, the obedience part of the equation is a breeze. An engaged dog would rather play tug, do some retrieving, or some fun treat training with you, than run off to sniff a fallen log.
Play and fun is the key to good engagement. Make it a point, especially when your dog is a pup, to play with them every day. Instill their prey drive, by teasing them with a tug toy, making it squirm around on the ground. For our Weims, you can add a WHOA into this process, by making the toy “fly” away every time the dog jumps on it. At some point, the dog will stop and stand still, that is when you MARK (click or say YES) and reinforce (give a treat or re-engage the dog in a new round of chase the tug). Often times you can let the pup get the toy so they don’t get frustrated. But add in the “fly away” often.
I wouldn’t do any hard tugging with a puppy until they have their adult teeth. Tugging should be reinforcing, and if you tug too hard, you could hurt their necks or it could be painful to their teeth if they are losing baby teeth and have adult teeth coming in.
It doesn’t need to just be about tugging. Most of our dogs love to retrieve. Use this love of retrieving to engage your dog. Work on getting your dog to follow a food lure. Walk around and reinforce them very heavily when they are with you and paying attention. This is not about being in heel position. It’s about being “present” and engaged with and having fun with you.
Once your dog will engage with you in your house, it’s time to take the show on the road. Play with your dog in every different place you can come up with — the front or back porch, the front or back yard, the garage, the parking lot at the grocery store, the parking lot at the park, in the park, in your office, etc. The more new places you can think of to play and have fun with your dog, the better.
As your working dog gets a little older, he will start to see new places not as something he needs to go investigate or be stressed about, but as a cool new place to play with you! You want your dog thinking “what neat thing are we going to do here?”
As you may have guessed, I am a big fan of tug. The reason I like it so much, especially for working dogs is that it can do so much for your relationship with your dog. It does not cause aggression as was commonly thought in the old days.
Photos courtesy of Vbird Studios.
About Sally Bushwaller
Great article! thank you
One of the things I tell people who complain that their dog won’t come when called at the dog park is “you have to be more interesting than the dog park”. Many of them don’t get it and just yell louder.
That’s a great tip! (Silly people… like being louder is more interesting to a dog? Oh well…)
One of the things my first paid-for obedience trainer taught me: no matter why you’re calling your dog, the moment he turns his attention to you he’s a goooooood doooooogggg! If you learned dog training the “old fashioned” way where you yell or otherwise disapprove when the dog doesn’t get it right away, this one tip is a major eureka!!! moment.
Super like. This is such a big issue in Weims.
So. We have a rescued 2 yr old Wiemeraner named Ouray (we’ve had him for 9 months)… he doesn’t fetch or play tug with much enthusiasm. And we’ve done a poor job of engagement by letting him roam around when we go outside to the huge park by our house, so he can run.
Problem is… We’ve been noticing that he no longer heeds anything we say. And playing tug or fetch is the last thing on his mind when we go out to the park.
How can we get this darned dog engagemed more with us. I’ve started the 10×10 second tug games with him, but is there anything else?
- sam
Sam, there is no short answer to your question so I’ve emailed you privately. However, the key to getting your dog to pay attention to you is to stop trying to force them to pay attention to you. I always recommend my spontaneous behavior protocol, which starts with the basics. With treats in your hand, ask for a SIT, mark (say YES or click) the second the dog’s butt hits the ground, and reinforce (give a treat). Now hide your treats and do the same thing. Then relocate and wait for a sit, don’t cue the dog in any way and don’t let them see the treats. The second the butt hits the ground, mark and reinforce. Once you have this behavior, completely uncued, begin to require this behavior before your dog gets ANY resource. If the dog does not OFFER the resource, the only consequence is the dog doesn’t get the resource. Don’t cue them and don’t nag them.
Dogs hate being nagged. Don’t constantly call your dog’s name and expect them to respond each time. If you use it all the time they’re going to tune you out, you become “white noise” to them. Instead train attention with intent and good treats. Put your dog on lead in a quiet area, and just stand or sit there. Mark and reinforce any attention to you. Don’t cue them to pay attention to you. This exercise teaches your dog to voluntarily pay attention to you. Then move to a more distracting area and repeat the exercise. Ultimately you will repeat this exercise in the park or other highly distracting areas on a short lead, then on a longer lead.
You also need to watch your body language. If you cue your dog to do something and they don’t do it, most people move in or bob towards their dog, almost like a threat. This also causes dogs to disengage and move away. Instead, try moving backwards away from your dog when you are training, or turning around and going the other direction (it depends on what you are working on) I could go on forever on how to fix attention issues, that’s it for now.
Had a great obedience training experience with Top Dog in Flanders, New Jersey. One quickly learn that the biggest problem is the human, not the dog.