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 backside.
Step 1 – Wait for Eye Contact
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. Try to use reward placement to get the puppy to sit as he takes his food by delivering the food to the puppy slightly above his head. In order to more easily take his food, he will more than likely put his butt on the ground. If the puppy doesn’t quickly put his butt on the ground, give the food anyway.
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.
If your puppy stands up, try using reward placement to get him to sit. Again, if he doesn’t sit, give him his reward anyway. Once you say “yes”, you are obligate to pay him for the eye contact whether he sits or not.
Step 2 – Wait for Eye Contact and a Sit
After several repetitions of this game, most puppies will be sitting with eye contact. If he is, simply mark and reward. If he has been sitting with reward placement but then popping back up into a stand after eating his reward, it’s time to begin waiting for your puppy to sit while giving eye contact. Once he sits, mark and reward. From here forward, there must be both eye contact and a sit for reward.
If your puppy has remained in a stand the entire time you’ve been training and you’ve been unable to get him to sit with reward placement, you can either wait for him to sit or you can build a little muscle memory with a lure before progressing forward. I always wait, but if you’re having an especially hard time, simply lure the puppy into a sit a few times before waiting for him to sit on his own. Lure the puppy by holding the food just above the puppy’s head. Don’t give it to him until he puts his butt on the ground. The instant his butt hits the ground, say, “yes”, and give him the food. Don’t practice luring more than 5 or 6 times. Luring will create a food focused puppy. It must be a temporary tool. Once your puppy has been lured a few times into the sit, wait for him to sit on his own. Mark and reward.
Step 3 – Proof Eye Contact by Holding Food out to the Side
Once the puppy is actively trying to work with you and you’ve learned the mechanics of marking and rewarding, take the game up a notch by proofing eye contact. To proof eye contact, hold 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.
Step 4 – Practice
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”. Don’t even start the process of rewarding until after you say “yes”. If the “yes” does not come before you begin 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 can 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.
Step 5 – Tie the “Sit” Behavior to a Verbal Cue
You may have noticed that in all of the above instruction, we never mentioned telling the dog to “sit”. As is discussed in our chapter on “Adding Verbal Cues”, we don’t pair a verbal with a behavior until the behavior is well-learned. The trainer also needs the ability to anticipate when the dog is about to sit on his own.
By the time you name the “sit” behavior, the puppy should have done dozens or possibly even hundreds of sits. By watching how your puppy acts just before he sits, you can learn what he does just before putting his butt on the ground. That little something might be to turn and face you when you’ve just entered your dedicated training space. Whatever it is, make a mental note of it and then when you’re ready to put a name to the sit, simply say “sit” when your puppy indicates that he is about to sit.
For more details on adding a verbal cue, see Chapter 14: Adding Verbal Cues.
Step 6 – Generalize the Sit with Eye Contact
As we discussed in our chapter on generalization, a behavior is not truly learned until the dog understands that a particular verbal means to perform the corresponding behavior in all places and in varying contextual situations.
Once the dog understands the verbal command “sit” and is consistent in performing the behavior after hearing the verbal in your initial training place, it’s time to take your training to other rooms and into varying environments away from your home.
Don’t be disappointed if your puppy seems to have forgotten the sit all together when asked to perform it in a different place. This is very normal. You’ll need to train the sit again in the new location. However, be encouraged. It shouldn’t take nearly as long in the second place as the first. Continue working your dog in the new location. Periodically review the behavior in the old location as well. When the behavior is solid in the second location, train the behavior in a third and then a fourth. With each additional location, the training should become easier and easier until the dog understands the concept of performing a sit every time and everywhere you say it. Sometimes this understanding comes in the second location. Sometimes it may take quite a few more locations.
Where to Find Demonstration
The skills described in this lesson are demonstrated in our 3rd Day Video: Sit with Eye Contact
