"Look"

There are 3 things that The Pastelitos have not been doing well the last two weeks: "Look," "Heel" and "Stay."

For "Look," I should be able to say look and they look at my face. Dogs are 80% visual, so hand signals work well for teaching behaviors. The verbal commands are added after the behavior is mastered. They did this REALLY well in puppy and Intermediate class when I was able to use the clicker to signal "Good Job" and give them a treat as a reward. I can't do either in Advanced. In fact, for the first week of Advanced, I had to completely ignore them so they wouldn't take me for granted. After that week, they were completely focused on me at all times. Yet for the past few weeks, when I say, "Look!" they've just ignored me. They knew that what I wanted next was for them to sit and they would go ahead and sit but without the “look” first.

My trainer taught me a trick to get them to re-learn “look.” She said that if you tell them to “look” and they don’t, pinch the tip of the ear REALLY hard. It sends a shock and gets their attention FAST. I did that with Guava and as much as it pained ME to see her jump, it worked. The second time I said “look” after the pinch, she jumped away from me but did look. I was able to give her a “Good girl!” and scratch her head. Once she re-learned that “Look” can bring GOOD things, she hasn’t ignored me.

I was thinking about how the way I have to train them is similar to the way God is training me.

I need to remember to "Look," especially when He calls. It's one thing to do what we know He wants us to do, but that's not enough. We have to remember to always “Look” for Him to tell us rather than assume we know better. Also, sometimes if we don’t look, we get pinched and it hurts. We learn quickly to keep our eyes on our Master. It’s better for us in the long run.