Pay attention, puppy

The purpose of Saturday's seminar was to teach you how to teach the dog to pay attention to you.  If you ever see an Obedience trial, you will notice that the dog's gaze is completely fixed on the handler's eyes.  This type of deep interaction makes for a more responsive and obedient dog in trial, the field, or just around.

The instructor's method was heavily food (treat) oriented.  She instructed that the treat to the dog should come from your mouth, rather than from your hand.  Optimally, you would have a treat in your mouth and spit it into the dog's mouth.  Most normal people would not do this, but instead would have the treat in their hands.  The trick is to give the treat to the dog by moving the hand from the mouth to the dog's mouth.  There is no real deep reason for this except that (voila) the dogs eyes are on your face as the source of the treat, and not on your hands as you dig a treat out of your pocket.

There are pluses and minuses to a heavily treat-oriented training regime.  I use treats, of course, but not extensively.  However, now when I do give them, I will fake that they are coming from my mouth and require Larsen's attention to my eyes.  I won't just dig one out of my pocket and hand it to him.