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| Obedience: The Focus Command |
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Focus is the first step in obedience training
The benefits of building focus as a specific behavioral skill are enormous. Have you
every tried to get a puppy dog to do something but they're too busy smelling the
roses? The sad fact is, they find the roses have more appeal than you.
This may sound obvious but to be able to train your puppy dog, you need to get him to
concentrate on you. He is going to learn more and learn it faster if he is giving you his
undivided attention.
Building focus is certainly easier if you are dealing with a puppy but if you have
acquired an older dog that may not have previously had the opportunity to be taught
either because they have been locked in a yard or chained to a kennel or has been
given a free rein to do as he pleased, the challenge of developing good, intense
attention is a lot greater.
One of the best ways of bonding with your dog is through touching. Take every chance
you can to stroke, massage and groom him, even just patting his head as you walk
past him or while he is sitting at your side.
Spending time creating a close physical contact is healthy and relaxing for both of you
and will create a closer bond and therefore better focus on you.
You always want him to maintain a watch on you whether you are in training or not. An
added bonus to touching is that you get to examine every part of his body for any
potential health issues.
Ideas on creating focus:
Prepare for the exercise that you will be teaching. If you are giving rewards, they need
to be given immediately as the dog responds to your command and that means you
need to have the reward readily available.
Don’t make the mistake of having to fumble in your pocket for the reward and cause
the dog to wonder what the heck you’re doing. Once he loses focus, you lose the
opportunity.
Remain consistent with your rewards, commands and corrections. Learn to make your
commands as precise and unambiguous as you can.
Remember that your dog doesn’t speak your language and so he is going to learn by
the sound of the command and tone it is given. Remain consistent with both. Remove
any unwanted distractions that may affect your dogs learning.
As with all exercises, they need to be started in a quiet area away from any distractions
and as the lessons progress, you can begin to introduce distractions. Make your goals
achievable. Don’t expect too much too soon or you will both be disappointed.
Create a learning curve that will give your dog opportunities to be successful in his
learning and development. Ultimately you want your dog to await your explicit
permission before he does anything such as meeting other people or animals.
Permission should not be given ad hoc. All this is going to take time so don’t rush him
or yourself.
Learn the basics of Operant Conditioning, also known as response-stimulus or RS
conditioning. Develop a method of precisely marking the desired behaviors. With his
focus on you, clicker train and reward appropriately (food, toy, and praise).
Build on the intensity and duration of his obedience by slowly extending the time
between marking the correct response to your command, and rewarding it.
Create a release command that will end the obedience lesson. Using this command
released him from the physical and psychological stress associated with complete
focus. You can give a treat after the release command has been given. I like to give
praise or have some tug playing.
Rewarding obedience:
I’m not a great proponent of food rewards because you then have to go through a
weaning process but if you do give food as a reward in your puppy dog obedience
training, keep the treats small.
They do not need to be large enough where they require chewing and they should not
be crumbly because this will cause distraction when the dog is sniffing around for
crumbs to vacuum up.
Another problem with giving food rewards is that you student puppy dog is going to be
continually looking at your hands for the reward or even worse, sniffing and prodding at
your hand which takes his focus away from you.
If you give food rewards, spit them from your mouth and that will keep his attention on
your face which is where you want it.
If you decide that you are going to use a ball or toy as your reward, identify one that
you know your dog likes and set it aside to be used for training purposes only and don’
t allow him to have the toy at any other time.
Whichever reward you use, keep it close at hand but keep it out of sight until you are
ready to give it.
When you are training your dog to focus on you, you want to keep him close to you.
Allowing him to chase off after a ball puts his focus on the ball. You want the attention
kept on you. Keep your training on a short leash.
When he responds as he should, spit a reward to him to catch if you are using food as
it will keep him watching your face or use a tug toy if you are using a toy as a reward
because he will be facing you to play tug.
Either way, he is looking at you and not distracted by anything going on around him.
This is particularly important when you move your training to a public area such as a
park.
Make training fun and exciting.
Take every opportunity to train your dog by making your one-on-one training sessions
fun and exciting. Make everything he does a response to training and therefore
earning a reward (praise).
Teach him to sit for certain occasions such as waiting for his food or waiting at the door
to go to the bathroom. Learn to use the different commands throughout the day so that
they become a natural part of both you and your dog’s vocabulary.
Learn to crate train your dog. A crate is an ideal place to let your dog rest between
training and interactive play sessions.
Make your walks energetic which will cause him to keep alert and maintain attention on
you. It’s also physically better for both of you. A slow, lazy amble is going to create a
slow lazy dog that is going to have time so smell the neighborhood and have his focus
on the ground and not on you.
Keep the training sessions short, maybe 5 minutes or so. Training a dog that remains
energetic and enthusiastic will make him more highly focused and will be much more
productive than an exhausting hour long session where you are both going to get tired
and lose focus which will ultimately end in frustration and failure.
After teaching him to focus, comes the sit command.
The benefits of building focus as a specific behavioral skill are enormous. Have you
every tried to get a puppy dog to do something but they're too busy smelling the
roses? The sad fact is, they find the roses have more appeal than you.
This may sound obvious but to be able to train your puppy dog, you need to get him to
concentrate on you. He is going to learn more and learn it faster if he is giving you his
undivided attention.
Building focus is certainly easier if you are dealing with a puppy but if you have
acquired an older dog that may not have previously had the opportunity to be taught
either because they have been locked in a yard or chained to a kennel or has been
given a free rein to do as he pleased, the challenge of developing good, intense
attention is a lot greater.
One of the best ways of bonding with your dog is through touching. Take every chance
you can to stroke, massage and groom him, even just patting his head as you walk
past him or while he is sitting at your side.
Spending time creating a close physical contact is healthy and relaxing for both of you
and will create a closer bond and therefore better focus on you.
You always want him to maintain a watch on you whether you are in training or not. An
added bonus to touching is that you get to examine every part of his body for any
potential health issues.
Ideas on creating focus:
Prepare for the exercise that you will be teaching. If you are giving rewards, they need
to be given immediately as the dog responds to your command and that means you
need to have the reward readily available.
Don’t make the mistake of having to fumble in your pocket for the reward and cause
the dog to wonder what the heck you’re doing. Once he loses focus, you lose the
opportunity.
Remain consistent with your rewards, commands and corrections. Learn to make your
commands as precise and unambiguous as you can.
Remember that your dog doesn’t speak your language and so he is going to learn by
the sound of the command and tone it is given. Remain consistent with both. Remove
any unwanted distractions that may affect your dogs learning.
As with all exercises, they need to be started in a quiet area away from any distractions
and as the lessons progress, you can begin to introduce distractions. Make your goals
achievable. Don’t expect too much too soon or you will both be disappointed.
Create a learning curve that will give your dog opportunities to be successful in his
learning and development. Ultimately you want your dog to await your explicit
permission before he does anything such as meeting other people or animals.
Permission should not be given ad hoc. All this is going to take time so don’t rush him
or yourself.
Learn the basics of Operant Conditioning, also known as response-stimulus or RS
conditioning. Develop a method of precisely marking the desired behaviors. With his
focus on you, clicker train and reward appropriately (food, toy, and praise).
Build on the intensity and duration of his obedience by slowly extending the time
between marking the correct response to your command, and rewarding it.
Create a release command that will end the obedience lesson. Using this command
released him from the physical and psychological stress associated with complete
focus. You can give a treat after the release command has been given. I like to give
praise or have some tug playing.
Rewarding obedience:
I’m not a great proponent of food rewards because you then have to go through a
weaning process but if you do give food as a reward in your puppy dog obedience
training, keep the treats small.
They do not need to be large enough where they require chewing and they should not
be crumbly because this will cause distraction when the dog is sniffing around for
crumbs to vacuum up.
Another problem with giving food rewards is that you student puppy dog is going to be
continually looking at your hands for the reward or even worse, sniffing and prodding at
your hand which takes his focus away from you.
If you give food rewards, spit them from your mouth and that will keep his attention on
your face which is where you want it.
If you decide that you are going to use a ball or toy as your reward, identify one that
you know your dog likes and set it aside to be used for training purposes only and don’
t allow him to have the toy at any other time.
Whichever reward you use, keep it close at hand but keep it out of sight until you are
ready to give it.
When you are training your dog to focus on you, you want to keep him close to you.
Allowing him to chase off after a ball puts his focus on the ball. You want the attention
kept on you. Keep your training on a short leash.
When he responds as he should, spit a reward to him to catch if you are using food as
it will keep him watching your face or use a tug toy if you are using a toy as a reward
because he will be facing you to play tug.
Either way, he is looking at you and not distracted by anything going on around him.
This is particularly important when you move your training to a public area such as a
park.
Make training fun and exciting.
Take every opportunity to train your dog by making your one-on-one training sessions
fun and exciting. Make everything he does a response to training and therefore
earning a reward (praise).
Teach him to sit for certain occasions such as waiting for his food or waiting at the door
to go to the bathroom. Learn to use the different commands throughout the day so that
they become a natural part of both you and your dog’s vocabulary.
Learn to crate train your dog. A crate is an ideal place to let your dog rest between
training and interactive play sessions.
Make your walks energetic which will cause him to keep alert and maintain attention on
you. It’s also physically better for both of you. A slow, lazy amble is going to create a
slow lazy dog that is going to have time so smell the neighborhood and have his focus
on the ground and not on you.
Keep the training sessions short, maybe 5 minutes or so. Training a dog that remains
energetic and enthusiastic will make him more highly focused and will be much more
productive than an exhausting hour long session where you are both going to get tired
and lose focus which will ultimately end in frustration and failure.
After teaching him to focus, comes the sit command.
