I just realised I might have been teaching my 7mnth old rottie x retriever Max the "look" command wrong -- He is quite good and not often too distracted, but I really find the "look" command to be SO useful.

I don't want to overuse it or (abuse it) too much but we try to practice it with him at home every day or so. I just realised we reward him when he looks at the command speaker's face, but he always looks immediately back to the treat.

Is this wrong? Should we only reward him if he looks at us until we give him the treat?

Kicking myself for only thinking of this now, bah! Would appreciate any advice, thank you!

Dont think it matters at all as long as he is looking in your general direction. I bring the treat up to my face when i say it!

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For this I would introduce a clicker.. that way you can click when he is looking at your face and before he looks at the treat - marking the behaviour you want.. With mine I gave the click and treat (C+T) straight away when they gave me eye contact.. after a few days, I gave C+T for a few seconds of eye contact and built it up over time.

Similarly you can hold the treat in the middle of your eyes (hand over head so eyes can be seen) or at the side of your eyes and give it to him straight away then delay it after so long..

Baby steps with both methods and keep up the good work

I started by holding the treat up to my chin, then just held my fingers up to my chin, but rewarded with the other hand and then just cued with the word and left it a little longer each time before I gave the treat. Now I do it with the treats in my pockets and sometimes rewarding with a toy instead, having phased out the lure.

Actual trainers will probably give you actual advice and if I had a bouncy dog who might try to jump up and take the treat, I wouldn't hold it to my face.

When I taught look at that, I taught my pup to sit and look at something and then look back to me. I use the word 'yes' instead of a clicker. It was brilliant for keeping her calm when I first introduced her to my daughter's new rabbits, who were then allowed to approach her for introductions, rather than her going to them and frightening them.

Okay, thank you both!

We started holding the treat up to our faces but the more he wants the treat the more half-hearted the glance at our face is. I guess its time to start slowly being more strict about what "looks" get rewarded.

As with any treat training you start with a lot of help and then gradually replace the treat with the signal and praise, occasionally going back and rewarding with a treat.

First Step.
May be easier to have dog in sit by your side or in front. Use a treat and move it between their nose and your eyes. To start with dog looks at treat. As you do this say "look" or "watch".

When they are getting the idea reduce the movement and say watch, when they look at you reward.

Do this and over time remove the signal, if they respond and do what you ask reward if not take it back a step.

Eventually you can be more sporatic with the treat.

Please note you can also use toys for this exercise, BUT if you have an excitable dog a treat may help them keep four feet on the floor rather than nutting you!

Let me know if this helps.

Shaz

You haven't taught it wrong, and you don't need to go back to basics, but I would now just 'shape' the behaviour to what you want it to be.

I would also use a clicker or marker word like 'Yes!'. Start out by saying 'Yes!' or clicking whenever he looks at you and gives eye-contact, repeat numerous times.

Then progress by giving him the cue, waiting for eye-contact, counting aloud "1", then click/'Yes!' and treat. Repeat numerous times.

You can then keep prolonging the click/marker and subsequent reward for longer periods of looking at you- so "1-2" reward; "1-2-3" reward; "1-2-3-4" reward. You may like to vary the lengths from 1-5 seconds in the beginning stages to make it unpredictable and increase his motivation, i.e. sometimes he has to wait 5 seconds, but other times on 1 or 2, which is much more motivating!

Counting aloud will also help him familiarise himself with the exercise and act as their own markers, so to speak, to let him know that he is on the right track (stopping counting when he looks away will be another clue that he has not performed the correct behaviour).

If he doesn't get it, make the periods of looking even shorter. Always set him up to succeed, even if it means taking 1 or 2 steps back in training terms.

My trainer said just hold the treat at chest level and say "look" and wait and the dog will soon look into your eyes. Worked with all of them, even T-Bo knew what was expected which was remarkable as he was so young.

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I was told to hold the treat in the middle of your forehead - so it's pretty much at eye level....when you say "look". This worked for me and was from one of the trainers at Fred's early puppy class.