Trainer and behaviourist Jackie Drakeford has some useful tips on how to ensure your pet is paying attention.
Talk to the paw coz the dog ain’t listening” — how many times do you see other dogs (and sometimes your own) ‘saying’ this when out on a walk?
Here are 10 ways in which you can improve your communication.
1
Avoid wittering on. There’s a difference between chatting to your dog (which all of us do quite harmlessly and which most dogs enjoy) and producing a constant barrage of irrelevant noise. While you can’t communicate using ears, noses, coat, and tails, you can share body language. Dogs feel much more confident about this than they do about human chatter, where the same sounds can mean several different things or sometimes nothing at all that requires a response. A change of tone when giving a command is much more likely to get your dog’s attention than using the same voice all the time. Making eye contact before directing the dog to whatever you want him to do is also a good way of letting him know that something important is about to be said.
2 What does your dog want to do in any given situation? While you need to make sure he doesn’t eat or roll in anything noxious, or get into a scrap, you shouldn’t stress the petty stuff. If a delectable scent requires just one more deep sniff, or him adding his own weemail, there’s no harm in it. However, if you want to avoid spending the larger part of the walk waiting beside rabbit holes, then you can match the preferred response of moving away with a reward for your dog. This should then be followed immediately by ‘changing the subject’ to something more attractive, such as engaging in a few running steps or giving him a toy. Dogs soon learn that a command such as “Enough” doesn’t have to mean the end of nice things, but instead leads to a different kind of fun.
3 Listening is a two-way communication. If you ‘listen’ to what your dog is saying, he will listen attentively to you as well. In some breeds, ears can be very mobile: even drop-eared dogs can twitch the tops of their ears together or separately and slant their eyes to indicate what has grabbed their attention. If you get to know what they are pointing their ears at, it can be very informative. Tails too are great semaphore. A wagging tail, just like a human smile, does not always mean the dog is happy.
If your dog has whiskers that can be seen (not possible w
