The other day, I discovered a cool eye contact trick that works like a charm the first time you try it. It's good for teaching the meaning of "focus" and duration to puppies.

Get yourself a white bendy straw and hold it in your mouth like a long weird looking cigarette.

Just make sure that your dog knows the sit command. While he's seated, stand next to him with your knee by his shoulder, tell him to focus (or whatever your command) and twitch the straw in your mouth with your lower lip a couple of times. Your dog will probably look at your eyes and straw in your mouth and just wonder what the hell that thing is. Give him a treat.

Give him the command again and twitch the straw, this time, don't give him a treat. Just stand there still with eye contact withthout moving the straw. Quietly and slowly tell the dog "that's fine." When he looks away for a split second, twitch the straw a couple of times. He'll look. Then give him a treat.

You can start pushing duration this way. Don't get ahead of yourself, though..set a goal for how long it takes for giving a treat. My goal was 10 seconds for the first time I tried this, but it worked so well, I got my puppy to do 30 seconds the first time in a quiet setting.

It's mainly a positive distraction tool...good for just teaching the command, but useless for proofing in a high-distraction environment.

You can do the same thing by making a funny sound with your mouth. It's a bit easier sans straw. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

You can also take the little plastic piece out of a squeaker. I used that with our boxer and it`s been working great.

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You can do the same thing by making a funny sound with your mouth. It's a bit easier sans straw. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I have to say it..reminds me of the anecdote about the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on American astronauts to have that pressurized space pen because regular ball point pens didn't work in zero gravity. But the Russian cosmonauts...because of the lack of money in their space program– they gave their cosmonauts pencils. LOL.
I should've figured that sounds work better for proofing under distractions than sight. I bow to your wisdom.

I often just wait till the little dopes look up at me in disgust for making them wait. Sans straw, sans noise. Just another in the many variations in dog training.