It is easy. Take a piece of food that the animal really loves…mine likes steak…cut it into pieces and hold it in front of your face. Repeat……….Waaaaaaaaaaaaach mi! When it starts to pay attention to your face and not jump give it a treat. I do this with the dog on it’s back. Takes a while but when it does what you ask it’s treat time
Start off by holding something that your dog likes…maybe a treat…and then gradually get away from it. It could take a little while, but it’ll eventually work:).
I second the suggestion to use clicker training. Teaching Attention is one of the easiest clicker behaviors to teach and is fun for your dog.
A super short version of how you can approach this:
You can buy a clicker at most pet stores. (You can also substiute the word “Yes!” where I say “click”, but it’s not quite a distinct to the dog and will go more slowly.)
First time you ever use the clicker, “charge” it by clicking 10 or 20 times in rapid succession, feeding a pea-sized yummy treat after each click. One click = one treat, always. Once the dog starts getting the idea that click means treat (you can see it in their eyes… it’s pretty cool), then you can start clicking for a specific behavior.
Attention is usually an easy first behavior to work on. The second your dog looks up at your face, click and give him/her a treat. At first, click/treat even if your dog gives you the smallest flick of his eyes. The clicker becomes a game for the dog — “hmm, what do I do to make that thing click so I can get another treat?”. If your pooch isn’t interested in the food, either try better treats or try training somewhere less distracting. You should see your dog giving you more and more eye flicks, at which point hold off on clicking for a fraction of a second longer so that you can keep his/her attention for a half a second, then a second, etc. If your dog starts losing interest, you’re moving too quickly. As your dog starts getting good at this, you can work those fractions of a second up into many seconds and eventually minutes.
Clicker training is good but first you have to load the clicker. Do this by taking a yummie goodie like little pieces of hot dogs and click the clicker. As soon as your dog looks at you/acknowledges the sound of the clicker give him a hot dog piece. This way he is associating the sound of the clicker with something wonderful. As far as teaching “Watch Me,” the best way is to take a bite-sized, chewy, treat and say watch me while putting the treat up by your nose. When your dog looks at you immediately give him the treat. I realize that at first he is looking more at the treat. Work on this for a while. When you know that your dog “gets it” start saying watch me and hold the treat a little bit to the side of your face. He will learn to immediately look at your face when you say watch me. It requires some patience so don’t get frustrated. Make sure you are only working on this for a couple of minutes at a time intermittently throughout the day. The last thing you want to do is discourage the dog by constantly working on this for hours upon hours.
I’d use clicker training. Basically, when your dog does something good, you immediately click, then immediately give the treat. To get your dog to watch you, reward eye contact. When your dog looks up at you, click and give the treat. Soon your dog will associate the click with the treat and will want to hear the click.
Timing is extremely important. When your dog displays the desired behavior, you have to click right away. Also, you don’t want much of a delay between the click and the treat.
There are tons of great books about clicker training available. I’d recommend anything by Karen Pryor.
jodie’s (above answerer) got it exactly right, and I train it the same, but in a sit, instead of on a down.
its not easy to learn your dog to pay attention to you
because its a very curios animal.
but u can have all its attention by removing every thing that may disturbed him this is mostly the only way
Treats, treats, and more treats. The trick is that as soon as your dog looks at you, say the words and give it a treat. The dog will soon realize that it’s beneficial to watch you.
Get the book No Bad Dogs by Barbara Woodhouse. Teach your dog how to heal set stay. the more you teach the dog the more the dog will watch you.