A basic training strategy that teaches useful control to your dog is showing him the best way to focus on you. Clicker training will help you to try this simply by simply reinforcing the action when your dog looks at you naturally.
The following stages will help you to tune up your dog into a clicker and also use it to show him focus on you. This is a great training methodology to use with Labradors and other food motivated dogs.
- Prepare for each session with a clicker fair number of little treats. Little is better as the dog will just get a taste of the treat which is inducement in itself.
- Press the clicker and right away give the dog a treat and repeat this a few times. This is called “tuning in”.
- Ultimately the dog will expect a treat every time he hears the sound. You can test this by his reaction to the sound. He should look to you immediately for reward on hearing the sound irrespective of what else he is doing. This will take a few sessions of 10 minutes or so at a time.
- When the dog is satisfactorily tuned in to the sound only click when he's looking immediately at you. Explanation this by keeping his attention for varying amounts of time and alternating by quantity of clicks used whilst he is having a look at you.
- Introduce your focus word; it can be anything except must be consistent. “Look, watch”, or “focus” are all options.
- If you're having difficulty getting your dog to take a look at your face you can slowly move the treat to behind your head. The dog’s eyes should follow it and when he is looking directly at you then click-treat.
When your dog is taught to focus effectively this could be helpful in several situations. It's an effective way to manipulate your dog without putting any unjustified pressure on him.
I'm hoping that this has given you some revelations into how to train a labrador, and that you continue on your journey. Good luck!
For more positive dog training info, methods, strategies, how to train a Labrador or any other type of dog with reward and reinforcement, then visit The Dog trick Academy today!