When training eye contact, you initially work with your puppy sitting facing you and in front of you. To best facilitate this process, wear your training pouch with it buckled in the front so that the pouch is on your rear.
For your first training session, walk out to your chosen training place. Stand still and wait. Your puppy will probably roam around the room. Most will probably sniff. Continue to wait until he looks in your direction. Say “yes”, lean towards your puppy as you reach your food hand towards the puppy and give your puppy a piece of food when he comes to you to get it. While the puppy is eating the food out of the one hand, pull a couple of pieces of kibble out of your treat bag with the other hand. After your puppy swallows his food, he will probably look back up at you now that he knows you are offering food. The moment he looks at you, say “yes” and give your puppy the food that you had already loaded in this second hand. Now, while the puppy is taking this piece of food from you, load another piece into the hand you used for the first piece of food. The puppy will probably look at you again. Mark and reward again. Continue marking and rewarding as long as your puppy continues giving eye contact. Most puppies pick up on this game fairly quickly and enjoy getting fed for such a simple task as looking at you.
Once the puppy is actively trying to work with you and you’ve got the mechanics of marking and rewarding down pat, take the game up a notch by holding your hands out to the side while your hands are loaded with food. This will enable you to reach two important milestones. First, when your hands are out to the side, they are too far from your face for the puppy to be able to look at both your face and the food at the same time. It will force the puppy to make a choice to look away from the food if he wants to earn the food. Secondly, it will help you to ascertain exactly when the puppy looks away from the food and at your face thereby enabling you to mark the behavior in a very timely manner. This timely marking is what will communicate to the puppy that it is the looking at you that earns the reward.
Mark and reward the puppy over and over until either the puppy walks away or you’ve rewarded the puppy about 10-20 times. This work is exciting and fun for puppies. As long as the trainer keeps the puppy successful, puppies enjoy it. However, there are aspects of this work that are hard. It is these aspects that will build resilience as the puppy struggles to get it right. Then, when the puppy reaches his “aha” moment and does get it right, it will build confidence and a love of the work. Sometimes, young puppies need to walk around and de-stress. Other times, puppies and dogs who are just learning this work will get distracted. At this point in training, let them explore what is distracting them. Let them take a break when they need to de-stress.
If the puppy walks off, wait for him to come back. If the puppy doesn’t walk off and he’s successfully been rewarded about 10 (no more than 20) times, say “okay” and move to a location a few steps to the side so that the puppy has to get up and re-initiate the game.
Once you have reached the following milestones, it is time to move on to teaching your puppy to be lured into a down.
1. You understand and are consistently using your marker correctly. You need to be rewarding slightly after you say “yes”. You cannot even start the process of rewarding until after you say “yes”. This means that you must refrain from moving the food towards the dog until after you say “yes”. If the “yes” does not come before your beginning the reward process, the dog will tune out the marker and be focusing on the food instead of listening for the marker. We will later discuss times when you need to be marking so quickly that it will appear as if the mark is simultaneous with the reward. However, those times do not build value in the marker. For now, you as a trainer need to learn how to use the marker in such a way that you build value in the marker.
2. Your puppy is proficient at making eye contact while you have your hands out to the side and both you and the puppy understand the game.
3. You are able to mark and reward repeatedly for eye contact with the dog remaining sitting and focused for at least 6-8 repetitions without getting up.
If you reach the above milestones within 10 minutes, you start teaching your puppy to be lured into a down in the same training session. If it’s been close to 10 minutes by the time you and your puppy have learned to play the game with good eye contact, then end the session.
Where to Find Demonstration
The skills described in this lesson are demonstrated in our 3rd Day Video: Sit with Eye Contact
