25. Watch

25. WATCH or EYE CONTACT

LEVEL TWO

Dog finds partner’s face and holds eye contact for 10 seconds with no more than two voice cues. No body language or touching other than looking at the dog.

DISCUSSION: Sure, you can train a dog to do just about anything without her actually looking at you, but once you've worked with a dog who gives you eye lock, you won't want to go back.

EASY BEGINNINGS: First, of course, you need to get the dog looking at your eyes. It'll probably be just a glance. Click that! If you're working with a small dog or puppy, sit on the floor or otherwise get down to her level. Make strange noises with your mouth. Hand Zen frequently gets a good glare from the dog. Do just about anything you can think of to get her to look at your eyes BUT do NOT put a treat in your hand and then put the treat near your eyes! That just gets the dog looking at the treat near your eyes. In your training life, you'll click the dog a thousand times for looking at your treat (usually by accident). You certainly don't have to reward her intentionally for that behaviour! Rapid-Fire click/treat will also usually result in a glare when you stop.

So, get the behaviour. Just a glance at first, but be ready for it. If you're thinking "Oh, there it is! I have to click!" it's already too late. You'll make mistakes, because her eyeballs are a lot faster than your hand is, but stick with it. Click the glance X20, then ask for more. Some dogs will start locking on to your eyes fairly quickly. For these guys, you can simply wait for a 1-second watch, then 2 seconds, then 3, and so on.

For the ones who decide they're getting clicked for a glance, work it X20, then ask for TWO glances before you click. Pay for two glances X20, and you should be starting to get a longer stare.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE KEEPS LOOKING AT THE OTHER DOGS (OR PEOPLE)! Start playing this game in a distraction-free place if you have to. The bathroom (working in the bathroom should give you several solitary times each day to work!), the bedroom – put the other dogs and people out of the space. You'll work up to distractions, but don't start that way.

SHE JUST STARES AT MY HAND! Well, good, she's got the "stare" part down pat, now you just have to transfer it to your eyes. Sit quietly and let her stare at your hand. And stare. And stare. Keep your hand absolutely quiet. Sooner or later, she'll give you the "Hey, Stupid!" reaction – "Hey, Stupid! Did you die up there? I'm staring at your hand! Where's my treat?", which is accompanied by her looking at YOU instead of your hand. Click!

Another way to get around this problem is to hide your hands behind your back. If the dog follows your hands, sit in a corner so she can't. Be happy – when you've successfully transferred her attention from your hands to your eyes, she'll be VERY good at looking at your eyes!

ADDING A CUE: Add a cue (Watch me!) when you've got at least 10 seconds of solid eye contact.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Once she has the idea of holding contact to get the click, you can start increasing the time. Count 1/click. 1-2/click. 1-2-3/click. And so on. When she makes a mistake, start back at ONE second. Watch your criteria here. You want total eye lock. If she glances away, start again.

Build up the time she can hold contact, and start adding distractions. The first distraction I use is just wiggling my fingers. Do this when you're sure the dog understands that she's being paid for holding eye contact. When she sees your hand move in the corner of her sight, she'll glance over at it. Just keep moving it and do nothing else. Pretty soon she'll remember what game she's playing and bring her eyes back to yours. Click! Next open your hand near her, then close it if she comes for the treat (hand Zen), and wait for eye contact. If you've been sitting down, stand up (remember to make time easier when you make distance harder). Work in different rooms and with different distractions.

The first thing I do in ANY new situation is sit down and start working eye contact. By doing this, I'm reminding her of many things I want her to know: a) she CAN work in new places, b) she's not alone in a new place, I'm with her. She can stick with me and we'll be safe together, c) she has to give me what I want before she gets what she wants, even in wonderful new places. This is especially important for an enthusiastic greeter to know. She can't just bomb into a new place and take an hour to use up all the wonderful sights and smells before she comes back to me. I'm FIRST. I get attention, or we don't play here at all.

LEVEL THREE

Dog finds the handler’s face and holds eye contact for 30 seconds with as many voice cues as necessary. Glancing away is acceptable but any prolonged look is not.

DISCUSSION: Don't train for that "glancing away" business, that's just for the test! 30 seconds is a LONG time for a Level 3 dog to hold contact, so don't get frustrated. I'd suggest starting this behaviour near the beginning of the Level and working it all the way through. Test out the other behaviours. This one will probably take the longest to get. While you're teaching eye contact duration, though, you're also explaining duration in so many other areas – how long she can hold a dumbell, for instance, all the Stays, and how to hold a Front without starting to dance.

EASY BEGINNINGS: There's nothing tricky about this behaviour at all. This one is just about putting in the time and not getting frustrated. You've put in a lot of effort so far teaching your dog to offer behaviours to get a click. If she's learned that lesson, she has a default of offering behaviours, and that default is what makes it so frustrating try to build duration into clicker dogs. Like everything else we do with the dog, this requires balancing (a default Sit needs to be balanced with a Down and a Stand, a default hang-around-dad needs to be balanced with being able to work at a distance, control needs to be balanced with enthusiasm – or enthusiasm needs to be balanced with control). You got to 10 seconds in Level 2 – that's a good start. You'll find plateaus of difficulty here. She might go all the way to 18 seconds with no trouble at all, then take two weeks to get to 19 seconds, then sail on up to 26 with no trouble, and take another 4 days to get past that. Not a problem. Just keep using 300-Peck to explain.

Let's review 300-Peck again. You get contact, and get it strong at 10 seconds. Then Start counting at 5 seconds (take it down to reinforce the idea). Click for 5 seconds of contact. Count to 6 and click. Count to 7 and click. Count to 8 and click. Count to 9 and click. Count to 10 and click. Now you're back where you left off, but keep going. Count to 11 and click. Count to 12 and click. And so on. As soon as the dog glances away, start again at a count of five and work your way back up (OR go right back to 1 second, if you think that's a better explanation).

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE WAS DOING 18 SECONDS, NOW SHE CAN'T DO 8! Occasionally in an explanation of a duration behaviour, the dog will seem to backslide for a while. You were up to, say, 18 seconds when she looked away. You started back counting to 5, then 6, then 7, and she looks away again. What's with this? She had 10 seconds VERY well, and you were up well past 15 seconds, now suddenly she can't get up to ten again! The answer is: who knows what lurks in the mind of Dog? It happens. Live with it. Call it a brain fart. Call it a short in the system. Work through it. Having worked through it, the behaviour will be stronger than it was before, and the dog more confident in offering it to you.

ADDING A CUE: You had a cue to Watch at 10 seconds, but when you started going on to 30 seconds, you stopped using it. When you've got it at 30, use it again for a while.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Work up to 30 seconds of hard contact in every room in the house, in your car, in the driveway, your backyard – everywhere you can think of. If your dog has a favourite toy, put the toy on the floor and work toy Zen with eye contact up to 30 seconds, then release her to get the toy. Play a game with it – staring at you for 30 seconds instead of grabbing her toy DESERVES a good game!

LEVEL FOUR

Dog holds contact 30 seconds from 10’, 2 cues OR approaches stranger, loose leash or tight, semi-stacks, holds eye/hand contact 20 seconds from 5’. “Judge” may make minor motions.

DISCUSSION: Maintaining the contact while getting the distance shouldn't be too big a deal. If you're on that track, this Level is really about more practise for that all-important eye contact! On the conformation track, we're asking the dog to approach a "judge". Whether the dog is trained to look at the judge's face or hand is your choice. You don't want your Sheltie looking up at a tall judge and flipping her ears up! I won't be explaining how to train the specific conformation behaviours here – for that, look at the articles on conformation gaiting and stacking.

EASY BEGINNINGS: In all probability, you've already had 30 seconds or more of eye contact while you were building up the duration on your SitStay andDownStay. Hope you noticed that! To practise specifically for eye contact, though, don't pair it with a Stay. If you're working on a SitStay WITH eye contact and she breaks the Sit but keeps looking at you, THEN what are you going to do? Tie her leash to something solid, or put her behind a babygate so you can work on the eye contact without worrying about how to get or keep the distance.

Start from a firm 10 seconds right in front of you, and build your time back up to 30 seconds.

Then drop your time back to nothingand start moving away from the dog. Use 300-Peck distance – one step away, click. Two steps away, click. Three steps away, click, and so on. When the dog fails – when she glances or looks away – start your count at 1 right back in front of her again.

When you have your required 10', drop back to 3' and 5 seconds, and build up your time to 30 seconds again. Then move to 6' and 5 seconds, and build back up to 30 seconds. And finally, walk out to 10' and start your count at 5 seconds again, building as you can to 30 seconds.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

DO I CLICK WHEN I FINISH THE COUNT? OR WHEN I GET BACK TO HER? When you finish your count. Remember you're NOT working on a Stay of any kind here, you're working on getting continuous EYE CONTACT at a distance. You're concentrating on the fact of the eye contact and how much distance you have, not on whether the dog is holding a Stay, so click when the contact, time, and distance have met your criteria. Remember that the click ends the behaviour, so as soon as you click, she doesn't have to continue looking at you.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: When you add your distractions into the mix, don't forget to cut back BOTH your distance AND your time. Bring a mild distraction in at a distance, and start your count again every time the dog looks away.

LEVEL FIVE

Dog holds contact 30 seconds, handler not watching dog, appropriate intermittent cues OR dog holds freestack with contact 30 seconds.

DISCUSSION: An interesting twist on the eye contact routine. The dog watches you, you don't watch the dog. You'll need a mirror for this, so you can see what she's doing. Why do you want the dog looking at you when you're not looking at her? For one thing, that's heeling, right? You look where you're going, and the dog looks at you. It's also a Stay – you walk away from the dog, and she watches you, ready to make eye contact when you turn back to her. And it counters a tendency in many dogs to think that if you're looking at them, you're thinking about them, but if you're not looking at them, all bets are off.

LEVEL SIX

Dog holds contact for 30 seconds, one cue only. This behaviour must be performed with no food or clicker in the ring or area.

DISCUSSION: Back to a behaviour that should be easy by now, but without food.

LEVEL SEVEN

Dog holds contact for 15 seconds, one cue only, handler does not watch the dog. This behaviour must be performed with no food or clicker in the ring or area.

DISCUSSION: This would be an easy behaviour as well, but we've added "no food" to the equation. By now, we're expecting eye contact as a default behaviour. I enjoy having people tell me they have good eye contact, when they mean their dog will occasionally hold contact for five or six seconds. Then I give them Scuba and have them work her for a while. You can almost HEAR her eyes locking on. The response is usually "Wow, I had no idea!"