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.

Max of course has a keen sense of smell and so anything that has a smell that he likes is something that he will find rewarding. To some these smells can be gross like the trash can or dirty socks, but to a dog that might be just a day in heaven. If you do not catch a dog doing these unwanted behaviors right away they will continue to do them as they think of this as a way to get a reward for free. Dogs do not put a label on a reward like humans do. Humans think that a reward for a dog is them being able to get a dog treat that they would not normally get, but this is not true for dogs.


The best thing you can do is catch them doing this unwanted act and stop it right there. Do not yell no at the dog, this will only scare him or her and they might continue this behavior just not when you are around. Instead try making a noise that you can use every time they are doing something that you do not want them to do. They will not become scared of you if you use a sound like shhh to show that you do not like what they are doing.

Once they leave the item alone then you can give them a different type of rewards and praise them for the behavior that you are looking for. You have to make sure to catch them in the act because it does no good to yell at them about something that they did in the past. They will not know what you are yelling at them for and might revert to hiding from you.

It is best to give praise for a job well done and so when they leave the item alone give them a better option than getting these unwanted rewards for themselves.