# Teaching dog to walk with you looking up...



## Angelina (Aug 11, 2011)

Question may be too early...I'm watching the Janice Gunn DVD 1 for puppies and I can see why she does this for show dogs. She teaches them to look up at her arm while walking beside her and to actually look up at treats she holds to get them to mover their bodies different ways...

This is going to require me re-teaching Cannella quite a bit and I'm afraid of teaching her to jump up when I've gone to such great pains to teach her not too!

Is this neccessary for agility and targeting? Or is this more for showing?

thoughts?

Also, do most trainers drop food from their own mouths to the dog? This piece kind of grosses me out....

thanks! K


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

If you are doing agility... you might not want her to be focused so deeply on you. It would be preferable that you can recall her attention and focus when needed, but otherwise... <- Hopefully agility peeps will check in here and let you know. 

Focus while playing in obedience, there are two ways to teach this (I do both):

1. The main thing is every time she looks up at you and offers that good behavior, you are FAST with the mark (clicker or "YES" word) and treats/reward/praise. And make sure you release her or are the one to look away.

With my guy he was a 9 week old puppy looking up at my face. And every time he did I was giving him the very excited "good watch" praise and quickly release him so he did not somehow learn that "watch" means looking up and looking away. So walking, around the house, wherever and anywhere - if he looked up at me right in the face, he was praised mightily.  

2. "Watch" is a sustained focus until you release the dog. You sit the dog in front of you and practice multiple mini sessions of "WATCH". You give the word and hold your dog's face in your hands, release and reward when you get at least 2 seconds steady eyecontact. You wean off the hands. As your dog is increasingly "clicking" as to what you want, you start lengthening the amount of time you hold that watch. Add 10 seconds at a time. Don't ask for an unreasonably long watch early on while you are teaching this. And don't ask for watch around distractions until you have build a very strong foundation and your dog understands what "watch" means. 

This is a very positive and GOOD exercise to do with your dog, but it can become "bad" very quickly - particularly if you are getting frustrated and harassing your dog to watch you. 

I don't add corrections (no, watch / pop correction) until the dog understands what the word means.

@treats in the mouth - I could never do this because of my hyperactive gag reflex. But if you can, it shortens the amount of time that it takes to teach a solid moving watch.

You do have to somehow get the food up to your face though if you are using a lure method to teach this. Even if you are putting it in a bag around your neck, or pinning it to your shirt, or putting a pouch on your arm.


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## Angelina (Aug 11, 2011)

Thanks! She does know 'watch me' from our family dog classes and both dogs look in my eyes now. I think I'll continue watching the DVD but not teach anything from it yet..I have to piece together how it pertains to agility (if it does). Someone else mentioned a DVD for training for agility I'll try next (on my other thread from last week) but I'm am looking for more suggestions of training videos I can rent from bowwow.com

I imagine it is like horse training...review what everyone has to say and pick out those things that make sense to you...

thanks! K


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