They Have Stars in Their Eyes (How To: Watch Me)

Watch Me can be helpful for photo shoots!

Focus is one of the most important aspects of a Service Dog's career.  We have to focus on our handlers constantly to ensure their safety--a lack of focus could place our people in danger.  Sometimes we can do our job without looking at our handlers constantly (eg a guide dog), but sometimes we need to be able to watch our handlers, particularly when they request it of us.  Enter Watch Me: it's a focus command that plays out exactly how it sounds--as a dog, I need to watch Mom and keep my eyes on her until she releases me or gives me another command.  Here's how to train it (it's pretty easy):

• Mom put a treat in between her fingers and made sure I noticed--I kept my eye on the treat. (for dogs who aren't as food motivated, try a small toy)
• She then raised the treat up right next to her eyes, and because I was focused on the treat, my eyes followed where her hand went.
• When I looked where Mom wanted me to look, she gave me the treat to reinforce what I had just done.
•  Mom repeated this and slowly incorporated the words "Watch Me" ("Focus" is also a good word to use).  She also started just raising her hands up to her eyes and treating me with her other hand until I could do a perfect Watch Me without the need of treats!

Watch Me should be a pretty easy command to learn for most dogs, but as I've always said, each individual dog has his or her own learning speed--an easy command for one pooch might be hard for another, depending on that dog's breed, history, age, and motivation, amongst other factors.

Now I can focus on Mom whenever she asks me to "Watch Me"--I even know how to do it without the hand signal!  Even without the command, though, I tend to watch Mom a lot to make sure she's okay (and I'm proud to say that when I'm around, she is okay).

TTFN,
Kelsie Iris


SD team etiquette -- http://kelsieiris.blogspot.com/2015/04/dos-and-donts-of-encountering-service.html
Confused?  Here are some terms and abbreviations -- http://kelsieiris.blogspot.com/2015/04/as-abbreviations.html