“Do you think she has hearing problems?” asked my mother-in-law.
She was asking about Scarlett. She thought that maybe she had a hearing problem because she didn’t always respond to her name.
My wife laughed and said: “She hears just fine. She is choosing to ignore you.”
Funny how kids can be a lot like dogs.
I see it all the time when I am helping someone train their dog. The dog will be on leash and they say the dog’s name…..nothing. No response, no attention, no engagement.
Which is why you need to make sure you are always working on attention and engagement. If your dog is not responding to their name, do NOT give a command.
Attention is the foundation for all your training. Spend more time on attention and engagement and you’ll start getting the results you want.
To get your dog to engage with you, you can’t stand at the end of the leash like a dead fish.
You need to use movement, tone of voice, contrast, excitement, rewards and movement.
It’s a big exciting world at the end of the leash for your dog and they want to go and explore. Your dog wants to sniff and check out the world.
It will take some work to get his attention off the squirrels, scents and sights and back on you.
Done correctly, your dog will learn to focus his attention on you and stay engaged.
So start working on attention and engagement. Once your dog is focused on you you’ll see how much better they respond to commands.
Speaking of….now that I have your attention, let’s get down to bid’niz. You can join the Dog Training Inner Circle for just $1.00 and get full access to all the training videos (90+), articles, forum and much more.
Time to engage!
Here’s where to go to get started:
All the best,
Eric