Teaching focus, or engagement, is an enormously beneficial skill to include in your dogs education, and can help with certain behavioural issues, leash skills, working around distraction etc. You can use food, toys or play to achieve focus and increase your value in your dogs eyes.
I’ve included a couple videos below to help get you started. Teaching focus isn’t difficult to do, however, you do have to put in the practice time. Remember, in order for your dog to understand focus in all areas, you must practice in all areas, indoors, outside, at the park, at the cottage etc. Dogs need practice in order to become more fluent, but you must also be fair, and start under low distraction so that you can help them to understand how to focus without a whole bunch of things going on around them. You can add that later.
I hope this helps you to gain some understanding of focus and engagement, and how useful it can be in your dogs life and education. Work on it, practice it, have fun with it, enjoy it. And don’t be afraid to be creative with this – creativity keeps things fresh, and dogs enjoy fresh (whether its food or training, trust me).
Happy training!
Smart Dogs Canine Training Milton 