How to build engagement with your dog

Engagement first!

In order to train your dog, you should work on engagement first. What do I mean by that? Engagement games that you play with your dog like fetch or tug-of-war and so forth. Essentially what you are doing by playing engagement games with your dog, is making your dog WANT to be with you because you’re fun. When your dog wants to be with you, training gets a lot easier and your dog will give you its full attention.

That way you can significantly cut down on training time as well as produce a really good recall. When you have a dog that wants to engage you, you have a happy dog willing to work that has no interest in walking away from you. That way you spend less time getting your dogs’s attention back from distractions and more time doing something constructive with your dog.

You also teach your dog your reward system in play. For example, if you’re asking your dog to let go of a toy during tug-of-war and your dog does and you give it right back to him and re-engage, you are teaching your dog that it’s OK to let it go because he gets it right back. In other words getting that toy back becomes the reward.

Tug-of-war is probably the most important game you will ever play with your dog, especially if you have a working puppy and you’re interested in dog sports. It can be used to teach so many different things like a firm, calm grip, and a strong pull.

All you have to do, depending on what you are teaching at the moment, is reward your dog by letting go of the toy at the right moment. When the dog shows the desired behavior, you mark it by saying yes and release the toy a second after that. Your dog will want to replicate the behavior in order to win again.

When you have good engagement, your dog will want to be around you all the time and will even push YOU to work with him - a win win situation for you.

You can see an example of my dog Elena wanting to engage on my YouTube channel Dogpoint. Click here to see the video.

Written by:

Marc Windgassen

Dogpoint LLC