Does your pup get easily distracted? Do you ever wish they would pay more attention to you? Are they reactive?!
Teaching look is quick and easy, but this command is so important. This is how you can very quickly get your dogs attention. The more you practice this command, the better!
This command is perfect for reactive dogs. When you see a trigger for your dog, (this can be a dog, person, bike, etc) you can simply ask your dog to “look” and you should easily get your attention. You can praise and reward them when they look and slowly you’ll get a less and less reactive dog. They’ll learn to look at you rather than the thing they’re trying to react to, and eventually when they’re unsure, they’ll look to you, ready for their next command! Australian Shepherd’s are naturally reactive dogs, it’s in their DNA, so we’ve worked extra hard on making sure they aren’t reactive by teaching them “look” and automatic “looks” among other things!
So start with your dog and a bunch of yummy treats.
Say “look” and put the treat by your eyes. When they look up, say “yes” and reward.
After a few tries you can start saying “look” and wait a few seconds to see if they look at your eyes. If they look at your eyes, immediately say “yes” and feed; If not, bring the food up to your eyes again, then say “yes” and feed.
As soon as they no longer need the help of the food by your eyes, congrats, they know “look”!
We also reward often times when they make their own decision to look at us. If i’m walking with one of my dogs and they look at me for no reason, i’ll tell them how amazing they are and reward. Rewarding them for making their own decision, creates a more attentive dog!
Bonus
Once they know look, you can make it harder by saying look and having a treat somewhere other than your eyes and wait until they make the right decision to look at your eyes instead of the treat. As soon as they look at your eyes for even a second, reward!
You can try this with toys and anything else they like as well.
Once they’re good at that you start adding duration, first start 5 seconds, then 10, etc to see how long they can look at you for without looking away.
If they cannot do these, they need more practice before adding in the distractions again.
If you can say “look” and throw a toy or treat while they remain looking at you, you know they have a super strong understanding of the command.
