When it comes to training a dog it is very important that your dog makes eye contact with you. Just like humans you know when someone is paying attention to what you are trying to say, by making eye contact with you, this is the same when it comes to dogs. If your dog is not looking at you when you are speaking to him/her then chances are good that they are not listening to you. This is important when training a dog you want something that tells you that the dog is truly listening to what you are trying to teach them.


Here is something that you can do to insure that your dog is making good eye contact with you and is ready to begin training.

First try and point to your eye and say watch me, if the dog does not even turn their head to look at you then you might want to try and reward them for this. Get a small treat that your dog likes and hold it between your thumb and index finger and draw a line for the dog’s nose up to your eyes and say watch me. Chance is good that the dog will look in the direction of the treat. Keep repeating this and even try and hold the treat up there for 10 seconds and then go longer because the longer the dog looks at you the better chance you have of holding their attention. Once it seems that the dog is getting the idea that when you say “watch me,” means to look at you, you can lose the treats and they will still focus on you because they know there will be a reward when they do.

The best thing that you can do for yourself while training is a dog is to be able to get their attention and hold it for long periods of time, this will keep your dog from wondering off and going into their own little world which can make it very hard for them to train.