How to teach your dog the 'Look' command using clicker training:
- Find a nice quiet place at home to practice your session.
- Keep training sessions short and fun, always ending on a high note.
- Have your clicker and some tasty treats ready.
- Call your dog’s name and as soon as they make eye contact with you click and treat.
- Initially, they only need give you eye contact for a split second to receive a reward.
- If they don’t look at your eyes, instead of repeating their name again and again, make some noises (kissy noises!) to attract the attention towards your face. Alternatively you can hold a treat by your head to attract their attention upwards.
- Once they will immediately give you eye contact when you call them, you can begin to say ‘look’ or ‘watch’ just after you say their name, before looking up at you.
- Then begin to ask for slightly longer eye contact before they receive their click and treat, for example: 2 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 7 seconds and so on. Continue until you can maintain eye contact with your dog for 20 seconds.
- Try not to stare too intently at your dog...and smile!
- If you dog breaks eye contact at any point, do not reward, repeat the command and start again. If your dog continues to break eye contact at a certain point, go back a few steps and build up the time again gradually.
- Practice ‘look’ in different locations, gradually introducing more distractions.
- Practice asking your dog to ‘look’ at you on a walk, then immediately ask him for a sit or play a game with him to keep him on his toes.
- Once he is perfect at the ‘look’ gradually reduce his rewards and introduce ‘jackpots’ for excellent performances.
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