March 16th, 2011
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I enjoy this game so much! Whenever it’s played in the classroom, it’s even better. This game is a great alternative for people who are used to bringing treats up to their face to get their dogs to look at them. Here’s how it works: Use people food for this game (string cheese bits, hot dogs or steak). Put a few at a time into your mouth. When your dog looks at you, spit a treat at him! Dogs who realize that food comes flying out of peoples’ mouths just for looking at them tend to look at faces more! Some dogs catch the treats, brownie points for them. As your dog gets good at this game, take it outside. Put the dog on leash and simply practice in your yard if you need to. Main side note on this game: don’t play at the dining table!
Tammy Reinarz, CPDT-KA and a Professional Member of the APDT, has been training dogs of all breeds within the Central PA area since 2005. |
Tammy, I just wanted to say how much I’ve been enjoying your tips!
Spitting food at a dog ? What an absurd idea. Where in the world did you dream up that ” game ” ? CRAZY. CRAZY. CRAZY.
I don’t need to spit food at my dogs!! When i call them, they look at me…..always! Even our cats look at us. This is a really weird tip.
This is such a simple and fun trick. It makes sense to me, and I’m sure George will like the ‘play with food’ element it involves.
Thanks for sharing, I’ll give it a go.
Didi
What a great idea! And how fun..even for us humans!!
This is a bizarre tip. If it works for you, though, why not? I just hope you’ll be able to eventually stop spitting food at your dog as he or she learns to pay attention naturally.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of! Spit food at my dog? What? My dog is intelligent enough that when I call her name or just talk to her she looks at me. She will look at me when I use her various nick names and when I am simply talking. If you have to spit food at your dog to get them to look at you then maybe you should make a trip to the vet and make sure the dog can hear.
I use this technique in training my dogs for the recall in performance…gets a great straight sit with my shelties and gives me the concentration I need from them with the dog show environment…BUT please be careful..I have seen many novice handlers get injured doing this…a dog may be a little excited or food motivated at first and you can get bite in the face!
Know you dog!
This is excellent. I train potential therapy dogs and this is a great way to teach them to interact with patients’ faces.
Tammy ~ great idea for young dog training. I hope it wouldn’t be needed for older dogs.
I have 2 stubborn toy spaniels – age 2 1/2yrs. I’ll try this one to improve their focus.
thx
This is a rather dangerous game. What if there happens to be a small child in the house or comes to visit and you give them a cookie? That dog will think it is for him/her and take it away and may bite the child. This si sooooo dangerous. I have seven Dachshunds and they all look at me when I call them.
This is not a ‘trick’ nor simply a game. It is a well documented method of strengthening a dogs ‘engagement with the handler. For an excellent example of how and why it is used I suggest the ‘Michael Ellis: the Power of training With food’ DVD produced by Leerburg Productions.