Attention

You don’t want to have to yell at your dog.  Issue your first reprimand in a quiet voice and reward them if they do it the first time.  If they don’t listen, then use your harsh voice or a hand signal.

Keep waiting, even if it takes awhile to get started.  Your dog will learn much better if they figure it out than if you try to lure them.

Be ready to reward your dog at the right time.  If your dog is not acting like you want it to, watch them closely and be ready to promptly reward as soon as they do something you do want.

Attention is vital for training.  With it, everything is exponentially easier.  Build your “Watch Me” command a little at a time, until you can practice it at the park.

At higher levels of training you can use a very quiet voice to get a heightened level of attention from your dog.  A little whisper voice makes a powerful reward.

This smart little Beagle things the exercise  is a little more complicated than it actually is.

It’s much easier to control your dog when it’s looking at you.  Fortunately, it is incredible easy to teach your dog to look at you with simple Reward Training.  As they figure it out, ask for longer and longer looks.

If you want to have focused attention on-command, you need to let them know when the “Watch Me” is over.  Telling them to “Relax” then becomes a reward for their good attention.  Feel free to use a lure to get them focused, so long as you phase it out.

By turning around after rewarding the dog for looking at us, we can easily train it to actively make eye contact with us.

Keep your dog secured on a leash and ignore everything they do.  If they sit and look at you, give them a treat.  Soon you’ll have a much more attentive dog