Orientation Game

What?

Dogs can often find themselves wanting to interact or react with things in the distance and independently from the owner. This makes it very difficult to give them freedom in distracting environments and trust they will bounce back. The orientation game will help. It works on the specific behaviour of orienting to you. This game builds that reflex to orient to you.

Why?

It creates a crazily focused dog!
It promotes confidence in distracting environments!.
It creates a default bounce back whenever your dog leaves you on a walk.

How?

This game will teach your dog that chasing food is fun. This means that you don’t need to use high value treats, their usual kibble will do the trick – it’s all about the game rather than the value of the food.

Throw a piece of your dog’s dinner out (about one meter away).
After they finish eating it, of course, they are going to look back at you for more. At that moment of them orienting back to you, mark the movement with a “yesss!!”.
Follow the marker with the reward of throwing another piece of food out in a different direction to continue the game.
Repeat.

Start this game in a very easy, low distraction environment where your dog is used to playing with you.
Play this everywhere, anywhere and as often as you can!
Play the game with your dog on the lead to encourage loose lead walking.