Offered Eye Contact (Patreon)

I recently taught a recall class for Fidelco's puppy raisers that went over how I teach a motivated recall, soup to nuts. This was the first exercise in that series. Why was I not asking the dog to come? Or doing a hand target? Or any of the normal things one would associate with a recall? Because the first step in a recall is having a dog that willingly orients to the handler. 

This eye contact exercise teaches the dog to offer me eye contact or a check-in. It makes me relevant. Building a recall is all about layers and building those layers up slowly so that the dog very rarely "fails" or doesn't come when asked. So to start I set the dog up for success. Here I use a bowl because we typically don't want guide dogs to eat off the floor unless given the cue to do so in a training context. 

I start with putting a piece of food in the bowl. The dog eats the food and their natural inclination is to look up since I have all the food. When they do, I mark that and toss another piece of food in the bowl. By doing that, they will eat it and have another opportunity to look up at me. 

At :18 I toss food away but that was only so that she would line back up with the camera so it was easier for the viewer to see what she's doing. 

At :25 seconds I miss an opportunity to mark when she reorients to me. She chooses to lie down but does look at me. I mark at :27 seconds, even though she lays down, as the criteria is simply for her to look at me. Putting the food in the bowl allows her to stand up to reengage which is what I want. 

By the end we're getting a nice behavior loop: Eats food, looks up, mark, eats food, looks up. That is what my goal is so the game is over. 

This can then be used as a game to start auto-checkins when out on a walk, or I can locate the bowl next to me, next to a wall and start using it to train looking up from heel position. Or it can simply be the start of the recall and teaching the dog that I'm relevant. Either way, it's a simple, fun game to get some handler orientation with your pup! 

Happy Training!