Best Way to Draw Your Dog’s Attention

When you become alpha to your dog, he will automatically pay more attention to you. He needs to know your intentions, your moods, because they affect him. Moreover, he wants to please you or, at the very least, keep out of trouble. In order to do that, he has to pay attention, to see what works and what doesn’t.

However, there will be times when your dog’s mind is elsewhere and you need his attention quickly: You want to teach him some­thing or ask him to work for you, you want to give a silent signal, you want to help him to focus because he seems stressed. For these occasions, use “Watch me!”

• Ask your dog to sit, and say “Watch me.” As you do, point toward one of his ears, then quickly draw your hand up and point toward your eyes. If his eyes follow your hand and look into your eyes, praise. If after a few tries, your dog won’t fol­low your pointer, try snapping your thumb and middle Fin­ger beneath the pointer once as you move your hand toward your eyes.
• Try holding a squeak toy up near your face. “Watch me,” squeak, “GW/dog!”
• Some dogs will simply look into your eyes if you merely say “Watch me” or if you whistle, then say it.

Dominant dogs may not want to “give” you their eyes at first. It’s giving up something—leadership, the thing they want to keep. Stay with it, and with the training, and they will learn to look to you for direction.

Submissive dogs need time to learn that it is okay to look alpha in the eye. Among dogs, eye-to-eye contact is an aggressive act. If you think about it, it can be among people, too. But it can also be a benign act, an expression of curiosity or attentiveness, even affec­tion. This is the very lesson pet dogs need to learn, that eye contact means not one thing, as in the wild, but many things. Because dogs are so adept at reading the content of what is in your eyes, once they learn it’s okay to look, the rest is easy for them.

This said, it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to find something that will work, and it should take no time at all to practice this “command” because you can toss in a quick “Watch me” when you are about to feed your dog, put on his leash, even when you pass by him in the house. Of course, use it before teaching a command. It’s a way of letting him know you’re about to work.