Look Away & Look At Me

The above picture shows a scared rescue dog "looking away." He is showing a lot of body language in this picture:

• He is looking away from the person holding him
• His ears are flat to his head
• His eye is showing white in a "whale eye" way
• His mouth is tight

Since it is not a video, we can not tell if he is also licking his lips or yawning. These are all signs that the dog is nervous and stressed. In this dog's case, he has every right to be - he is in a shelter, strangers are taking pictures of him (a camera is just a really big, shiny eye to dogs) and I am sure that the noise level there is fairly high.

But, there is hope:

Here, he is still scared, but looking at the camera. He is obviously used to making eye contact with humans and will be a quick learner for "Look" or eye contact. However, even if this dog never made eye contact, it would still be an excellent candidate for rescue. I haven't met a dog that hasn't been able to learn to meet my eyes.

Teaching eye contact is one of the easiest things I do with a foster dog. It doesn't require that I touch the dog. The dog doesn't need to know its name. All the dog has to be able to do is eat treats - and, be brave enough to eat those treats in my presence.

What you need are:

• Treats (pea sized)
• Treat bag (for keeping the treats in)
• Clicker

Begin by throwing a treat one at a time onto the floor. As soon as the dog picks up the treat, click. Do this about 10 times or so. We call this "charging the clicker" and it basically begins the association of clicker to treats.

Place a treat in one hand with your arm outstretched. As soon as the dog looks at the treat, click and give the treat. You can either hand the dog the treat or toss it to the dog. Repeat 20 or so more times. End session.

During the next session, which can be after a break or that evening or the next day, start with having the treat held like before. Click & treat about 10 more times. Now, bend your arm so that the treat is half the distance it was from your body. When the dog looks at it, click and treat. Repeat 20 or so more times. Now that the dog really knows what the clicker is for, make sure that you, every once in awhile, skip the treat, but not the click. This give a variable reinforcement to the click, which makes the behavior you are training more resistant to extinction (i.e., it doesn't get forgotten or go away easily).

If you have a really shy dog, you will want to stay at this step for a few sessions.

Now, for the next session, practice the previous sessions for a few clicks and then move your hand, with treat, so that the treat is held right between your eyes. When the dog looks at the treat, click & treat. Practice this a few sessions.

Now, move your hand so that your finger is pointing to between your eyes. When the dog looks there, click and treat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Now that you do not have to hold a treat to get the dog to look at you, you can now introduce a verbal cue (we call what we did before the physical cue - it is good to use both, since dogs can lose their hearing). I use "look" or the dog's name or both. Basically, point to your eyes and say look. When the dog looks, click and treat. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I can usually get any foster dog, including the shy ones, to look at my face within a week. That is about 7 days of one session per day, with each session being no more than 5 minutes.

Some things to remember: if the dog starts showing those calming signals like the pictures above, back up a step in your training and do that step until the dog becomes comfortable. Then, move on to the next step. Keep an eye on the dog's body language the entire time you are training and make sure that he is always OK with what you are doing. If he isn't, step back and reevaluate.