5 Simple Ways to Get Your Dog to Pay Attention
Do you find yourself trying hopelessly to get your dog’s attention? Does “in one ear and out the other” sound familiar? Or does your dog find it easy to listen to you until he sees the dreaded mail carrier? Whatever the case, it’s important that we owners are able to capture and hold our dog’s attention. Just imagine the consequences if our dog ran onto a busy road and was not able to listen to us calling him back!
In this article, I will cover 5 simple tips you can apply immediately to help your dog become more attentive.
Brain training is a super-effective way to increase your dog’s ability to pay attention to you!
Many of the games in my Brain Training for Dogs course are designed to improve your dog’s attentiveness. One of my favorites is “The Airplane Game,” which you can access for free. In this simple game your dog will learn the following important skills:
How to pay attention to you on command.
- How to maintain focus on you despite distractions – unlocking the pathway to super obedience.
- How to use his hidden intelligence to figure out puzzles. The “Smacking Sound ”Wouldn’t it be great if there was a noise we could make at any time to get our dog to immediately pay attention to us? Well, fortunately for us there is, and it’s called the “smacking sound”! But before we can harness its power, we need to teach our dog that this particular sound = food. I make my smacking sound, then immediately give my dog a treat! To do this, with your dog in a quiet room, make a smacking sound as though you were kissing the air, then immediately give him a treat. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing when you give him the treat (so long as he’s not doing anything bad like tearing up the sofa), the idea is simply to show him that whenever he hears the sound, he gets treats. After doing this for a while, you should notice that your dog looks at you for his treat whenever you make the sound. With continued practice, you can start using the smacking sound in everyday life when you want to grab your dog’s attention! Keep in mind, however, that the smacking sound may be less effective at times when your dog is too worked up. For example, if he has seen something outside that he reacts strongly to, your sound may go unnoticed. One remedy for this is the “Look at That” game found in my Brain Training for Dogs course. In “Look at That,” we will work specifically on teaching your dog to pay attention to the smacking sound despite strong distractions.
- How would you feel about the idea of working without getting paid? This is exactly how our dogs may feel when we ask them to perform mundane tasks without rewarding them for their efforts! That is why incentives are so important in dog training.
