My dog ignores me: why he does not hear you and what does work

Your dog sees something. Another dog, a cyclist, a cat. You say his name and nothing happens. You say it again, louder, and still nothing happens.

It looks like he is ignoring you. He is not. At that moment what he sees weighs more than you do, and then a normal command simply does not get through. He does hear you, but there is no room to do anything with it. That is what you need something else for.

These are the three cues I use for that: focus, catch and find it. All three do the same thing, namely bring his attention back, but each one asks a little more of him.

You have about two seconds

When your dog looks at a trigger, you have about two seconds to pull him out of it. If you do not, it becomes a fixation, and then getting contact is a lot harder. At that point his ears are effectively shut.

If he really loves one of these cues, it can sometimes still be worth more than the trigger even then. But you do not want to count on that. You want to get in just before the fixation, not after it.

That is also exactly why it works in the long run. If you keep stepping in just in time, he learns that his new reaction to a trigger is: look at you.

Teach them first, use them later

This is the order that gets reversed most often. People read about this and try it straight away at the moment things go wrong. Then it does not work, because your dog does not know the word yet.

So teach it at a calm moment, when nothing is going on. Just say "find it" outside now and then, with nothing happening. Once you notice he knows the word and looks at you as soon as you say it, it is ready to use. Only then can you use it for the moments you actually meant it for.

With find it there is something else. Most people know it as a game for in between: a handful of kibble in the grass when he is bored, or something to keep him busy indoors for a bit. Nothing wrong with that, but because of it, it is rarely seen as something you use in the middle of a walk.

That is exactly where it is at its strongest. Because he already knows find it as something fun, it has value at the moment you need it. You are not asking him to stop doing something, you are giving him something else to do, and that is a far easier question.

None of the three work without the foundation

These are tools for a moment. They pull your dog out of something, but they change nothing about the reason he drops into it so quickly.

A dog who does not feel safe, does not come to rest, or has no idea what his day looks like, sits above his threshold far more often and for far longer. Then you are using these three for the whole walk instead of now and then, and in the end they stop working too.

That is also your most important gauge. If you need them constantly, it is not the cue that is the problem. Then there is a layer missing underneath, and there is much more to gain there than in whatever you shout at that one moment.

Focus: asking for eye contact

This is the basic one, and for many dogs it is enough on its own. You ask for eye contact, which makes it the lightest of the three: all he has to do is look.

There are two ways to do this. They do not clash and I use both, often mixed together.

Focus as a command

This is how you build it. Hold a treat next to your head and wait. Your dog looks at the treat first, but in the end he makes eye contact. That is the moment you reward.

You only attach the word once that looking is there. If he looks at you on his own, you say "good, focus". That way he learns what that word is called, instead of you calling it while he is still looking somewhere else.

After that you can start asking for it. If you notice he has not looked at you for a while, you say focus, so he does not drift too far into the world around him. That often gets you ahead of a fixation, a reaction, or even pulling on the lead.

Using your marker word

The second way asks him nothing. Here you use the word he already expects a treat with, which for me is "good". A clicker does exactly the same thing.

When he sees a trigger, you say that word. He looks up at you, because he knows what is coming, and that looking up is what you reward. So you do not have to unteach him anything first: you are using something that already has meaning for him.

Keep that up long enough and he starts doing it by himself. He sees something and looks at you, before you have said anything at all. That is the point where you do not really need the word any more, and then you have exactly what you wanted: his first reaction to a trigger is to look at you.

I do not only use focus for the hard moments, by the way. Also just in between, or right before we cross a road, or when someone walks past. For me "watch me" does the same work as focus. Which word you pick does not matter, as long as there is only one of them and you do not repeat it.

Catch: here he really has to be sharp

For some dogs a quick look is not worth enough. Those need something that asks more of them, and catch is the smallest step up.

You throw the piece of kibble towards him and he has to catch it. Nothing has to be searched for, but he does have to pay attention, because he has to judge how to take it. You can see his eyes getting ready.

So the difference with focus is that looking is not enough: he has to do something with it. At the same time it is over just like that. He catches, he swallows, and then it is done. That makes it the lighter of the two tasks, and that is exactly why it comes before find it.

In the beginning often nothing happens. The kibble bounces off him and he does not understand what is going on. Do it a few times and it falls into place: that thing is coming towards me and I can catch it.

Not every dog can catch, and with some dogs it simply takes longer. If he looks straight ahead and does not get it, that does not mean it will never work. Try it more often. If it really does not work, you stick with the other two. That is always an option.

Find it: a real job

If catching is not enough, or the moment is genuinely heavy, then find it is the heaviest of the three.

The difference is that find it gives him a real job, and above all that it takes longer. In grass you are five seconds further along easily, sometimes more. That is exactly what you want at a heavy moment: the longer he is busy with something, the further that trigger slips out of view.

This is how you teach it. You say "find it" and then throw one piece of kibble on the ground. Once he has found it, you say find it again and throw another. One piece at a time.

Never say the word while you are throwing. A dog who is already moving does not take that word in, and then he never gets to know it. First the word, then the kibble.

Which one do you pick when

Not every dog enjoys the same thing. One prefers searching, the other prefers catching, and that largely decides which one works best for you.

Start with find it when it is hard. That is the biggest distraction, so that is where you have the best chance.

After that you do not have to stick with that one. You may alternate, and you may even do it within the same trigger. Look at his posture for that. Is he still tense and still aimed at that thing, then you go for find it. Is he loose again and looking at you easily, then catch or focus is fine.

That is also how you build it up. First you use find it on its own. Once that goes well, you alternate between find it and catch. Once that goes well too, you alternate between find it, catch and focus. After that he will in time have enough with focus alone, and in the end he will not need any help at all.

But do read him. If he shoots forward or gets fixated anyway, you fall back on find it. Do not go too fast here. Better to carry on with find it a bit longer than to move on too early.

If your dog likes a toy more than food, use that instead. Take it with you and start playing the moment he sees something. The result is the same: he sees a trigger and looks at you, because he knows something good is coming.

Why this does not reward staring

This is the question you are right to ask here. He fixates on another dog and you throw something tasty. Are you not rewarding exactly that staring?

No, and that is because you are changing his reaction, not the looking itself. A dog who fixates and cannot get out of it usually starts reacting after that. Wanting to get at it, barking, and sometimes even acting aggressively. That is the chain you are putting yourself in the middle of.

By using find it or focus, his reaction to that trigger becomes a different one: looking at you. And that is exactly what you want him to do the moment he sees something.

How you say it counts for more than what you say

A command is a word your dog has to translate while everything is coming at him. In a busy moment it often does not get through.

So stay calm yourself. Your tension travels straight down the lead. If you start talking louder or walking faster, the situation only gets bigger for him. Talking low, calm and softly does more than shouting.

And a sound lands faster than a word. A whistle, a click of your tongue, or a short pst. It is shorter than his name, it does not sound like a demand, and it gets through even when he is half distracted. Do save it for the moments you really need him, otherwise he gets used to it.

That a spoken word is the heaviest channel shows up in research too. In a study from 2016 dogs were given a gesture and a word at the same time that contradicted each other. The dogs almost always followed the gesture. That was about gestures and not about sounds, so it does not quite prove my point, but it does point the same way: what you say weighs less than how you bring it.

When none of the three gets through any more

Sometimes you are too late and nothing works any more. Then you do not start shouting louder, because that only creates tension.

Make distance and lure him away. Stand where he is looking so you come into view, or lure him the other way with something tasty. What you do not do is pull back on the lead.

See it as a step along the way

These three cues are not an end point. They are the bridge to something else.

What you are working towards is your dog looking at you by himself when there is a trigger, instead of at that thing. The moment that happens, you do not need catch and find it any more.

That is also exactly the right moment to ask him for something he knows well. Have him walk in heel or have him sit. Then he has something to do that he can already do, and that is calmer than having to solve something new again.

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