The jump from at home to the park is too much added criteria. You have to add criteria incrementally.
At home, challenge his watch by having a helper walk in the room. When he has that challenge down, then have the helper pick up a ball, then try bouncing the ball, maybe drop a few treats... SLOWLY increase the challenge so that your dog starts understanding that no matter what exciting things are happening around him he can ignore them and watch you.
Just make sure you don't constantly increase the difficulty, make it hard for a few tries, then make it easy for a few tries and reward that too. This way the dog maintains confidence in the exercise.

Also, you might want to check out an exercise called "Look at that" where the stimulus of something exciting becomes a cue to the dog to check in with you.

 

Thanks...I forgot to say ...I had introduced added distractions at home...and he was confidently maintaining a good watch with me despite family members jumping up and down, waving arms, calling him, showing him toys etc

Which is why I thought he was ready to step it up a level :-(

Can you explain the "look at that " exercise please...I just don't want to confuse him by getting it wrong!

I understand what you mean by gradually increasing the distractions...the park seems to be a huge jump for him

 

I am trying to train the same thing, and like you have had difficulties when outdoors. Betty is not nearly as solid as being able to hold my gaze when someone else walks in, or calls her name, she will look at them but then look back at me- I never knew if that was good enough!

Something I do when we're out (because, lets face it they have to be walked so you need something to bridge the gap) is to hold a treat in my hand and point to my eyes. The pointing to my eyes is the hand signal I use for her watch me command anyway, but I found that holding the piece of food while doing it gets her attention better when we are outdoors.

It works for me, yes she may be looking at the food next to my eyes rather than directly looking at me- but at least her attention is on my face for long enough for the "threat" to pass without being barked at!

 

Can you explain the "look at that " exercise please...I just don't want to confuse him by getting it wrong!

I am sure other people on here can explain better or train it better but when I started working on my dogs reactivity I didn't use the watch command initially (no point setting him up to fail). Instead I would just feed him a special treat every time he saw another dog. If we walked past one he would be fed constantly until we were past, the idea being that he is rewarded for looking at other dogs and then begins to associate them with something nice (obviously at this point I was trying to stay far enough away from the other dog that he wouldn't react). My dog is anxious around other dogs and not letting him look at what worries him tends to make him worse. After a very short time he would see a dog and then automatically look to me for his treat. Once he was doing this reliably I just added in a "who's that" before giving him the treat which I can now use when we see dogs or people coming.

 

I usually teach mine a watch me starting at home by holding a really tasty treat in a position where they have to look up at you and make eye contact and the second they day quickly say watch me, and immediately treat.
You dont treat though until he makes eye contact.

Next step is to build it up to ensure you can not only get them to make eye contact before he gets the treat but keep his attention. I do this by instead of treating as soon as eye contact is made and Ive said the Watch me, I then add a wait command after the watch me and then treat. When you have this "wait" pause before treating, you then extend the wait time further,
by saying watch me on eye contact, say wait repeat wait and then give the treat. Once thats relaible and he will keep attention, then extend the time between the wait and giving the treat longer and longer a bit at a time.

Then you can start to use it outside with no to little realy distractions. Again when that is realiable you can then work at distance from other dogs, and then decrease the distance again bit by bit getting nearer and nearer, when each stage you know you can not only get his attention but keep it still.

You may too at first have to rapid fire treats or give more in the beginning to keep and maintain his interest by constantly repeating the whole exercise. In time though as he improves you should be able to taper off the treats using less and less. One thing that is good is the cheese spread in tubes, that you can get with various flavours, usually one you have squeeze a little out, most dogs seem to get engrossed trying to lick more out the tube without you having to squeeze more out.

 

Thanks for the useful advice....lots of practising to do!

I love the squeezy cheese idea! Thank you :thumbup:

 

Thanks for the useful advice....lots of practising to do!

I love the squeezy cheese idea! Thank you :thumbup:

Glad it may be of help, thats the way Ive always taught mine and found with these it works, so hopefully will work with yours too.

 

Thanks...I forgot to say ...I had introduced added distractions at home...and he was confidently maintaining a good watch with me despite family members jumping up and down, waving arms, calling him, showing him toys etc

Which is why I thought he was ready to step it up a level :-(

Can you explain the "look at that " exercise please...I just don't want to confuse him by getting it wrong!

I understand what you mean by gradually increasing the distractions...the park seems to be a huge jump for him

Try somewhere less exciting than the park first Can he maintain eye contact while family members do stuff like that in the garden? How about on the street just outside your house? Dogs don't generalise well so Watch Me in the house with distractions is completely different to Watch Me on the street. When you move to a new place your best bet is to go right back to basics on the behaviour and teach that it means the same thing no matter where you are.

Here's a video on teaching Look at That.
Clicker Training 'Look at That' LAT Game -teaching dogs to focus and eye contact - YouTube

 

Thanks Sarah...moving to just outside the house and "starting again" sounds like a good plan!

Again...I think he will find that hard...but not quite as distracting as the park!

 

Thanks Sarah...moving to just outside the house and "starting again" sounds like a good plan!

Again...I think he will find that hard...but not quite as distracting as the park!

I'm in the middle of the same process with Spencer. He can do it easily just outside our flat but if we go to the end of the row of flats it's much more difficult for him and I have to go back to a food lure. I stand no chance at all at the park although I do watch out for any glances in my direction and click and treat for them for now. It's not eye contact as such, just an acknowledgement of my presence lol.

 

I have found the 'watch me' incredibly helpful with my very reactive Lab.

I found it helpful to gradually lengthen the amount of time my dog has to 'watch' for while still practising at home. The more focus you are able to build, the better.

As has been said, you need to practise a lot, and with distractions at home, before moving to the park. I practised with Dex while out on quiet walks for quite a while before trying to use it in the park.

I also found it helpful to incorporate a 'sit' into the 'watch me', but this can come later - you may find, as I did, that your dog volunteers this behaviour, in which case cue HUGE fuss and high value reward

Keep going with it - it really does help.

 

I used a clicker to train watch and the 'look at that'. If Amber looked at another dog without barking she got a click and then a treat.

 

I teach attention as a default cue. I don't say "watch", rather anything new or exciting in the environment becomes the cue to the dog to look at me. From there I may ask for sustained attention or something else.

Don't have time now to type it out, but will later.

 

Basically I start by holding a treat in my hand. The dog will naturally stare at your hand, not your face. I just stand/sit there and wait. Eventually the dog will look up at you wondering what the heck is going on, at which point I mark (click) and treat. Some dogs won't look up at you, but will look away from the treat, you can click that and build up to looking up at you.

From there, I will add criteria slowly and deliberately.
Hold your hand differently (face up, face down).
Hold your hand away from your body so the dog has to be deliberate about looking away from the treat and at you.
Delay the click/marker so the dog has to hold eye contact longer.
Move your hand while the dog maintains eye contact.

Repeat as above with a toy, a ball, a flirt pole...

Every time you introduce a new distraction, lower the criteria - ask for shorter duration until the dog can maintain eye contact with the new distraction.
Always set the dog up to be successful so they enjoy the training and maintain confidence in the exercise.