Reward those check-ins

one of the first things i teach all clients is to reward their dog for paying attention to them.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds! It takes good observation skills, great timing, and fantastic treats!

Teaching a sharp recall starts with teaching your dog the delicious benefits of paying attention to you

When out on a walk, do you check out your dog to see if she is checking you out?

Rewarding your dog for simply looking in your direction when on walks is one of my top tips for encouraging your dog to pay attention to you while you're working on developing a solid recall.

Let's face it: We are almost always the least interesting thing in our dog's world when outside, whether we're taking them on a leashed walk or an off-leash romp. Our dogs are primed to eliminate, sniff, sniff again, dig things up, roll in stuff, try to chase critters, and so on. Checking in with us — looking in our direction — is pretty low on the agenda. So when they do, reward it!

Four tips to finesse those check-ins — and to generate more of them

You've heard me say it many times: our dogs do what works for them. That's why we use food in training and reward our dogs generously for the very difficult task of paying attention to us outside. Keep these four tips in mind for your next leashed or unleashed walk:

1. You should stay alert to the environment (not tune out with music or a podcast)

2. Understanding what really motivates your dog (sniffing vs. digging vs. eating snacks)

3. Having fabulous treats with you, always

4. Keeping your dog in sight and praising/rewarding them whenever they look in your direction

Check out Bob the Basset Hound speeding to his guardians with his recall word, Bingo! Step 1 of learning this was to simply reward him for paying attention to his people.