When owning a dog it is easy to get caught up in teaching them the household rules and obedience, but skip the fundamentals that create lasting, training results. The very first thing a top dog trainer knows is that we must teach the dog is to simply pay attention to the handler. That is the process of engagement training.

A dog who is engaged knows that payments (praise, treats, toys and play) comes from their handler and is motivated to work with their handler to obtain those payments. Before we can ask a dog to follow commands, have good manners, and be safe when off the lead, we must show them that listening to us is in their best interest.

Engagement is the fundamental building block when wanting your dog to be reliable in training in and outside the home, without it you'll have a difficult time getting your dog to walk to heel or come when called when faced with so many distractions in the real world.

What engagement is not!

However, engagement can’t be commanded or forced, it isn’t a dog fixated on the toy or another reward and then losing “engagement” the moment they’ve won it. When they win the toy they will immediately bring it back to play more, they shouldn't take it and retreat to other corner of the garden to enjoy it alone.

The idea is they want to play with YOU…because you are FUN!

Engagement is also not:

• The ‘look’ command - Asking your dog to 'look'/'watch' is not engagement, it's them merely them following a taught command. Remember you can't command engagement, it comes willingly from the dog because they want to work with you.

• Playing Tug - It is a great game if your dog enjoys it, and works a treat as a reward, but playing tug is not engagement, it is well playing tug! However, it can certainly be used to get engagement.

• Recall - Getting your dog to "come" when called may look like engagement, rewarding for a come and rewarding for engagement can look very similar, but a recall is far from what an engaged dog really looks like.

• Ball obsession - Now I've seen dogs dive out their owners cars, doing full spins, walking backwards and barking at the owner as they walk onto the field. It can easily be mistaken for engagement but then you see the ball and launcher in hand, the moment that ball is thrown the dog is off like a shot to retrieve it, then returns dropping the ball and staring hard at it (not the owner.) Now take the ball and launcher away will the owner still have engagement? The likelihood is not, though fetch can be used to get engagement there is a significant difference between ball obsessed and being engaged with you.

So what is engagement and how do we get it?

Creating real engagement isn’t easy, it can be very difficult and it certainly doesn't happen overnight. Also you can't teach it and then forget about it, as real engagement is something you have to build and continuously maintain.

But what is an engaged dog? An engaged dog is exactly that…engaged!

They are driven and constantly pushing for the training that is about to happen. An engaged dog doesn't care for the environment, they're not off sniffing or running over to other dogs and people, they're on you not wanting the game to end, they're engaged with you because through you, all fun happen.

How do you get engagement though?

Well a starting point would be to simply reward your dog when they offer engagement, either give them a treat or toy when they push you to play and train. As well as capturing the moments when your dog chooses you over their environment, go nuts and celebrate them, and be FUN!

Miku's engagement is something I am still working on to this day, and likely will be for a long time, but when she switches on and wants to engage she stares right up at me and gets this look in her eyes, I can see her eagerness for wanting to work for her rewards.

Thanks for reading! Now you can learn about 'Too much verbal.' When training our dogs we can go over board in our verbal commands and half the time we haven't even taught our dogs to understand the verbal in the first place!