Look at that

Dog Looking

Alright, furrends! Get your human off the sofa and lets level up our playtime.

This is especially useful to my furry friends that humans may call “reactive” (you must be that good, like this cool turbojet engine!). Anything that catches your attention - dog, bird, motorcycle, cool hat - you want to get their INSTANTLY, and if you can’t you are voicing your excitement with few friendly loud “Woof”s and pull the human behind you.

We will need basic equipment: bunch of good, high value treats (always!) and human on other end for good measure. Doing this exercise will allow you to take a moment before lounging forward to your personal trigger, think whether it’s worth it and train your human another way of increasing our treat supply.

Mechanics

Step 1: Leash up and get those treat bags ready in humans hand. When the human tosses that tasty snack just outta reach, resist the urge to go full speed ahead. Trust me, you won’t get it, but that’s part of the fun! After a bit of drooling and pleading with those big puppy eyes, they’ll cave and let you snag it.

Step 2: Time for round two! This time, when the human holds back the treat, play it cool. Give ‘em a quick glance, and wait until human playfully dances back few feet. Running in opposite direction takes our minds off whatever weird stuff caught our attention. As it happens, bam, turn around and book it! And guess what? More treats will magically appear on the ground (you hear that human?) as you chase ‘em down.

Repeat step 2 several times per session. That should train the human putting the treats on the ground every time you give them attention.

After few times at home, take the show on the road. Do you see that squrrel bouncing ahead of us? Game on! Another doggo that we are about to voice our opinion about? Take out those treats and let us know we are in business by calling our name, human!

Sources

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