Engage/Disengage Dog Distraction

Hey folks!

I caught this little moment of real-life engage-disengage/offered attention while I was filming for another video in the parking lot of a shopping center. A husky had come by and done a bit of staring at Denver and then walked in the direction you can see Denver looking.

The first little bit is some displacement sniffing on the ground in response to the dog walking by. But because he's had a history of engagement, you see him offer that first check in which I mark and reinforce to initiate the game.

Now in the engage-disengage game, when a dog is first starting out, we would mark for looking at "the thing" or the distraction. But Denver has played the game enough times that I wait for part 2 - the offered attention. I wanted to show you this because it's a good example of how quickly we can go from a dog distracted by another dog, to a dog that's locked on and no longer looking back at the trigger, ready to work - less than one minute lapses - totally worth the time it took!

I have found over the past month or two as Denver is squarely into adolescence, I've had to pull out this game several times around some tougher distractions. Revisiting skills is always an option! That's why I love to have a big toolbelt to choose from as needed!

Being able to get focus in this way is a much better option than trying to correct the dog into paying attention. The dog offering engagement in response to a distraction is always better than having to beg for it/try to prevent them from looking. It does take a lot of practice though for offering attention in response to a distraction to be in their repertoire, so get out there and have some fun around distractions!

If you haven't learned about the engage disengage game yet you can see a video on it here.