is one of the most important elements when creating the foundation for your dog's successful
learning and training. It may seem obvious that your dog is better equipped to
respond quickly and accurately to your obedience commands when it's paying attention to you. Nonetheless,
many trainers and handlers overlook the benefits and advantages of first building focus as a specific behavioral skill.
Developing the pup's or young dog's ability to focus early in the training, before introducing more advanced obedience
exercises, greatly improves the learning curve and makes for a more productive and successful training experience overall.
The earlier the better. While focus can surely be developed in a mature dog, the more exposure an older dog has had to
dulling inactivity (isolation in yard or kennel), or to unstructured pleasurable stimuli (other dogs, roaming,
indiscriminate scenting, game chasing, etc.) during its formative puppyhood and youth, the greater the
challenge of developing full and intense focus to the handler and to the requested obedience exercise.
Dog training begins with the process of isolating and shaping specific behaviors. As with other areas of
training, the key element of building focus is your correctly timed and appropriately delivered response to
either encourage a desired behavior (attention/focus) or to block, redirect, or extinguish an unwanted behavior
(inattention/distractibility).
Following is a brief summary of some focus-building habits and activities that will motivate your pup's desire to focus on you
and on the obedience training, and ultimately on his or her overall working performance.
- Plan ahead. Know which exercise you'll be training. If you are utilizing reward-based training, be prepared to
promptly and effectively deliver that reward when your dog produces the desired behavior. You miss a learning
opportunity and your dog's focus is dissembled when you send changing body signals to your dog by rooting around
in your pockets
for a food reward, or trying to untangle a tug handle from your belt, or smacking yourself upside the head
when you realize that you left the tennis ball in the car.
- Orchestrate success. Introduce early focus-building exercises in a quiet environment without distractions. As
your dog develops its focus skills, incrementally transition the exercises to more stimulating environments. Key
the training environment to your dog's focus skill level with an appropriate progression over time from a
distraction-free environment to a highly stimulating one. Prematurely expecting or demanding too much of the dog
will set the scene for failure for the dog, for you, and for the overall training.
- If you are using a food reward in your foundation training,
dispense the food by spitting it from your mouth.
Offering food rewards from your hands will create the dog that is constantly looking at -- or worse yet, sniffing,
prodding, pawing, or mouthing -- one hand or another. Promote initial focus by promptly marking and rewarding it.
- If you are using a ball/toy/tug/bringsel reward in your foundation training, identify the one that is most favored by your dog
and reserve it for training purposes only. Don't allow your dog to have access to this favored item during idle moments,
in the crate, for puppy teething/chewing, etc.
- Avoid displaying the reward visibly in your hand, and
inadvertently making it the primary object of your dog's focus. A tug can be tucked into your waistband,
a ball parked in a ball clip, or food kept out of sight in a pouch at your side, until needed for reward purposes.
- Keep it up close and personal. Use a leash length that keeps the dog in close physical proximity to you.
When using a toy reward in the training, keep it close to your body. A ball on a
short leather lead, or a tug with handle, will provide an outstanding reward while keeping the dog
physically close to, interacting with, and focused on, you. This also provides the opportunity to
begin teaching the motivational "out" command. Save the long distance ball or toy tosses and 100-meter dashes
for unstructured play and exercise.
- Make your dog's play time fun and exciting one-on-one interaction with you. Allowing your dog to spend all of its
recreational time with other dogs or other people will diminish your position as the most interesting, rewarding,
and desired prize in the universe. Allowing your dog to regularly run freely with other dogs, either at home or at
an off-leash park, is squandering time, energy, and focus better spent with you in constructive play or training.
- Familiarize yourself with the basics of Operant Conditioning and develop your own method of precisely
marking desired behaviors (eg clicker, vocalization) and rewarding appropriately (eg food, toy, praise, release).
Build the intensity and duration of your dog's focused obedience by incrementally extending the period of time between
(a) marking the correct response to your command, and (b) rewarding it.
- Maintain consistency in your total body language, hand signals, and verbal commands. The more precise and unambiguous
your communications, the less unwanted distractions to potentially diminish your dog's sensory awareness of and
focus on you.
- Deliver a consistent command to mark the end of a focused obedience exercise. "Break" and "free dog"
are examples of unique release commands. The release command builds anticipation and focus by signaling the completion of
a required behavior and releasing the dog physically and psychologically from the stressors of training. The release
command can be supplemented with a reward, or it can be a reward in and of itself.
- Crate-train your dog and utilize its time in the crate for resting periods between training and play interaction.
Allowing your dog to idle around the yard or house 24/7, especially in your absence, creates boredom and encourages
the dog to identify alternate sources of stimulus and pleasure.
- Utilize moments of interaction with your dog as spontaneous training opportunities. Create the environment where
your dog is earning each desired activity. For example, require a sit before
allowing your dog access to his food bowl; a wait before going through the door into the house;
a quiet before being allowed out of the crate or kennel; a teeth, ears, or toes
command and examination before petting. Vary the required behaviors to maintain spontaneity and keep your dog alert
and focused on you to hear, see, or feel your command.
- Create an attitude of purpose and direction in your daily walks. A purposeful, energetic walk with many
turns and changes of pace and terrain will build the dog's focus on you and secure its confidence in your leadership.
A slow, lazy walk in a straight line will allow your dog to sniff and smell whatever strikes its fancy and
encourage a head-down, indiscriminately scenting dog intent on 'reading the newspaper.'
- Employ the powerful effects of touch. Regular grooming and massage sessions with your canine partner are
superb opportunities for bonding. The stronger the bond between you and your partner, the better the focus.
Spending quiet, one-on-one time in close physical contact is relaxing and healthful for both you and your dog, and is
the surest way to closely examine your dog from nose to tailtip to identify and treat minor health issues before
they become major.
- Shape your dog's behavior to await your explicit permission to sniff and greet other people or animals. Withhold that
permission far more often than you grant it.
- Take control of the learning curve. Proactively create opportunities for your dog to successfully learn
and develop desired behaviors and skills. When this is done correctly, you should be generating 500 opportunities
to praise your dog for every one time you correct your dog.
- Less is more. A five-minute training session with an energetic, enthusiastic, highly focused
dog and handler that concludes with a celebration of success
will always be more productive than a 60-minute training session with progressively diminishing mental and physical resources
that concludes in frustration and failure.
- At the end of every training or play session, leave your dog wanting more, more, more and enthusiastically looking to
you to provide it!
These focus building strategies are an integral part of NorthWest K9 Dog Training School programs and course offerings for dogs of all breeds and their owners. If you'd like to learn more about building focus for outstanding obedience performance by your dog, please visit
NorthWest K9 Dog Obedience Training.
