Last week I mentioned how Maggie from Oh My Dog suggested I work Sampson and Delilah on the “Look” command to help us when we encounter dogs on our walks. By the way, her training book is called “Clicker Dog Training: The Better Path to a Well-Behaved Pup.” It’s available on iTunes.
Both my dogs have a decent response to “Look.” It’s more getting me to remember what I should be saying and doing
When Delilah and I were taking training classes, “Look” was our go to command, it kept Delilah focused on me and helped her to not focus on what other dogs were doing.
After I chatted with Maggie, I started incorporating “Look” a couple of times on each of our walks. I don’t reward as often as Maggie suggests, but I do reward.
With my dogs, and I’m fairly sure yours are the same, you can definitely tell when they see something of interest. The head snaps up, the ears stand up, their posture changes and they walk differently. It’s the perfect time for the “Look” command. It helps snap that focus.
Saturday on our early morning walk, we encountered a distraction.
Can you see them?
Thankfully, I kept my wits about me and said, “Look!” This distracted the dogs and diffused the situation.
We took a couple of steps closer, and the dogs started reacting again. Again I said, “Look,” and again they both stopped.
This was a huge flock of turkeys, I’d say there had to be close to 20 of them.
This particular house also has a dog, and the dog was barking, SO the owner opened the window and shoo’d the turkeys off. Once they had crossed the road, we were free to continue our walk.
This is the best shot I could get from the distance we were at.
I know for this to be my “go to” command, I have to use it more, but I can already see the benefit of using the command.
Saturday night, we encountered the same dog we encountered last week, (you remember, that was the one that didn’t end well.) This time we were a bit further away, which definitely helped, and I used “Look” which once again diffused the situation.
The dog was standing with it’s owners and they were talking to a couple of neighbors. (The woman did recognize me and said, hello, but I did not have a card to give her and didn’t want to get the dogs too close.) Sampson and I have stopped and chatted with one of these neighbors before and when I stopped to treat the dogs for the “Look” command, the neighbor started walking towards us. So while the dog and it’s owners were chatting with one neighbor, Sampson and Delilah were getting lovies from the other neighbor, while she and I chatted.
It made our walk a lot less tense.
What is your “go to” command, the one you use to redirect your dogs?
I use look as well. This command comes in very handy!!!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
I think I need to up my ‘look’ command use. I haven’t really used it the last few times I had BD – thanks for the reminder!
look is a very useful
look is a very useful cue
retro rover
The only time we really need such a command is when we see a squirrel or a wabbit, but nothing works. Mom has brought actual meat along to get our attention, but our hunting instinct has no interest and only wants the critters. Mom wishes it was just a simple command as those squirrels are a real problem for us this time of year!
We use “What’s that?” which we trained by me pointing at the distraction (starting with joggers working up to other dogs) and then luring Barley’s head to turn back to me with a snack 🙂 It’s been great because it allows her to look at the things that set her off and then rewards her for not reacting and looking at me instead. I use it anytime she starts to get excited about anything and it stops her in her tracks because we’ve used it so often and she knows what’s coming! (Although we have weaned off treats a bit, so she no longer gets a snack every single time–but for the first several months of training she did.) She’s gotten to the point where if she sees something before I do, she’ll look at it, look at me, look at it and wait for me to say “what’s that?” I don’t know what we’d do without it!
I am guessing you wanted to say “Clicker” training, and not “Licker” training. (but I never know with you..LOL)
Anyway, I just get Torrey to sit. She then just watches the other dogs go by without a big commotion. Last night she did this twice. She gets lots of loves and praise when she does well.
My dogs would be atremble with excitement – being that close to a flock of turkeys! Like Mary, I use the sit command.
The look command works well on Pierson to a point. I can generally cross the street when we see another dog and get Pierson to look at me as they pass. But if the dog reacts to Pierson, then the look command doesn’t work. He reacts to the reaction and there is not much I can do to distract him. I could have a big Jones Natural Chews bone and he would still pay more attention to the reacting dog!
When I am outside I am pretty much deaf to anything Mom says except the word “treat” which comes through loud and clear. I can usually stare at the treat in her hand until the danger passes. Then she says, “Look at me.” And gives me the treat as soon as I tear my eyes off the goodies and look at her face for a second.
Love and licks,
Cupcake
We’ve been working on “watch me”. I didn’t use “look” because it was too close to “Luke”. Cricket used to ignore me completely on walks until we started using it. Luke still needs work though, but we’ve just been doing clicker training for about a month now.
I just use “heel”. Heel means at my side no fooling around. It is the go to command at hunt tests along with the all powerful “sit”. Sit means but to ground until I say otherwise, at least in theory. 🙂 So did you know that a flock of turkeys is also called a “rafter of turkeys”. I heard someone call it that the other day…lol.
In the mornings my go to command is ” just 5 more minutes please” and I try to find the snooze button bol bol bol no seriously when my little angel is standing on my chest licking my face
trying to wake me up my go to command is OFF !!!!!!!!! and if she doesn’t move I PICK HER UP
AND MOVE HER !!!!!!!
Lately we’re doing more or less a “look,” though with my deaf foster pup I’ve gotten out of the habit of using verbal commands with Fozzie too! On walks I usually just stop and wait for them both to look back at me, and then they get a treat. Even when I do use a word for Fozzie, his prey drive is so strong that the word is seldom enough to make him look..he usually needs a change in direction or some sort of physical movement to pay attention. That is really impressive how well your dogs tune in!
Personally, I like “watch me” or “focus”. Of course, with Ducky sometimes it’s just “HEY!” really loud cuz she is SO tuned into that silly squirrel that just ran up the tree. Most times with her all I can do is laugh.
Yay! It must be such a weight off of you to have a way to tone things down.
I think I’m a bigger coward than you are. My “go to” command for situations on walks is “Let’s Go!” Followed by turning around and going the opposite direction.
so very cool! good dog my comment was too short again and I am to say something useful. hehehe