Speaker: Lesson 1: Look

With your food treat in hand; and it might be a good idea to have your dog on a leash and collar, I want you to command your dog to look. While you say the command, I want you to take the food treat and put it on the tip of the nose of your dog. You move the treat from the tip of the nose of your dog, to right between your eyes. Tip of the nose of the dog, right between the eyes. I want you to do this several times quickly. When you say look. As soon as the dog looks at your face, I want you to give the treat to the dog. You can also use verbal praise while your dog is looking at you.

You can use this look command throughout the day with your dog. So I want you to make sure that each time you ask your dog or command him or her to look at you, that the dog goes ahead and looks at you.

So at first, you might want to do this with your dog only on a leash and collar, close by. Once they understand the concept, they will be able to do this quickly anytime you say it, even from across the room.

So each time you feed your dog, require your dog to look at you. Remember, 100% compliance, 100% of the time.

When you create this no fail environment, your dog learns each lesson very quickly. We teach this command first because it forces your dog to pay attention and look at you. That is setting the foundation for future lessons.

If your dog's attention is diverted by say another dog while you are walking him, often using the look command is all that's needed to refocus your dog's attention on you.

It's also useful when you are training your dog to be able to say look, so you know your dog is paying attention and ready for the next command.

So now for the look command, you are going to have the dog on a leash, nearby, and all you do is you put the treat on the dog's nose, look, and then put it right between your eyes, like so.

As I had mentioned before, I want you to do it quickly. Look! Look! Then give him the treat as he is looking at you. Good boy! Good boy Shug!

Let's try that again. Look! Good boy! Good boy! As you can see, the dog eagerly watches my face, and that's going to get him in a position to look for your next command.

This is a good command to start using in the jump start training as I mentioned, when you are feeding your dog, when you are letting your dog go outside; every time you are putting the dog on and off of a leash, you can use the look command.

This is Kuma. I have never worked with this dog before, but I just got hired on to work with a client and his dog, so we will see how it goes.

Kuma, look, look! Good boy! Look! Good look! Look! Good boy! That's a good, good boy. Good boy Kuma!

He did quite well. The trick of the trade is to remember to move the food treat quickly between your dog's nose and the space between your eyes. Also remember to give the food treat to your dog when he or she is looking directly at you.