Eye Contact Game 101

Why Teach Your Dog The Eye Contact Game
Teaching your dog the eye contact game has three main benefits that help your dog to "grow up" and become the life companion you desire:

1. increasing your dog’s attention span as it relates to paying attention to you (dogs already have enough attention for things they want to do),
2. teaching your dog to overcome distraction, and
3. teaching impulse control.

The Basics
The eye contact game is taught by carefully increasing difficulty. You want to use rewards so your dog succeeds and succeeds often. The goal is for your dog to give you extended eye contact even near distraction. If you see signs your dog doesn’t want to play, you have either not made the game rewarding enough or have made a jump in difficulty that is too big for your dog.

A correct response on the part of the dog is "marked" with a verbal signal. I suggest "yes" as a substitute for a clicker. It should be different from the "yessss" you use as a keep going signal (KGS). Do not use a clicker because it tells the dog they have earned a treat and can now stop. We do not want to tell the dog to stop after each yes/treat.

There is no verbal cue to start the game. You will use a formal posture that tells your dog the game is afoot; the posture is your "on switch". You are always the one to start and stop the game. The cue to end the game is "okay" or any other release word you choose. Be sure you always have more treats in your hands when you end the game.

There is no cue to the dog that says, "you made a mistake", rather you wait out his mistake and then mark and reward a correct behavior. If the dog turns his total focus away from you toward a distraction, use your leash to firmly move your dog several steps away from the distraction. You might do this several times until you are far enough from the distraction for the dog to return his focus to the game.

This moving away from the distraction is done firmly and quickly enough so that your dog knows they are following you, but not so fast that your dog gets a leash pop. The idea is to interrupt the loss of focus, not punish it. We are not making the dog pay attention to us with force or to avoid a correction, but rather teaching him a fun game that becomes compelling on its own.

If the dog is unable to work through a distraction or if you are unable to move far enough away, end the game (saying "okay") and allow the dog the freedom to look at the distraction or leave the area. Typical things the dog may not be able to look away from are things that are scary or highly arousing. You still want to work on these, but do it on your own terms in a planned training session for that issue.

Some things that are especially hard for your dog may have to be worked over and over again, maybe in every few sessions for all the time for life.

Gimme here: I love food, all food. It seems to me that food on the ground should be mine to take, but my person doesn't want me to. She says it could be bad for me and so we play a special game. If I ignore the food on the ground and look really intently at my person, I can hypnotize her into giving me the good food that she has in her pockets. I love this game a lot.

In most cases the first goal is to get a duration of about 30 seconds and then add distraction. However, some dogs get bored easily and duration isn't challenging enough to keep them in the game. For those dogs, as soon as you have 5 seconds duration, start adding distraction right away.

Distractions are introduced gradually so your dog can succeed and gain confidence. Never use "traditional" proofing that sets the dog up to fail so you can get in a "good correction". Just as in teaching children, we increase the difficulty of their work as they demonstrate they are ready for it, so that they are able to succeed, challenged with new stuff and never bored.