Have you ever been in a situation where you just can't get your dog's attention?
What if there was a trick that you could use that could get your puppy focused,
anytime you're outside? Five, tap. Yes. Tap. Yay.
Even when you're inside the house for things like bringing him in close to me.
Tap. Yes. Good boy. Tap. Yes. Good boy.
What about things like clipping on your dog's leash? It would be so easy. Tap.
Good boy. If I can tell 'em to tap, bring him in nice and close tap. Yay.
Good boy. Sometimes a trick isn't just a trick,
and this is something that I teach every single one of my puppies.
And you should be teaching it to your puppy too.
So let's head back and I wanna show you exactly how easy it is to teach them
this skill. I'm Kayl McCann. This is Five Alive. Welcome back to McCann dogs.
Step number one is gonna be really easy.
Now there are a couple different ways that you can teach this,
but I'm gonna show you guys a really simple and fast way.
Especially if you have a really keen dog that likes the food.
Now I have a bunch of small treats in one hand here,
I'm gonna take one and I'm just gonna pinch it between two fingers so that my
hand can be flat because this is gonna be the hand cue I'm going to use later.
Now I'm not gonna worry about saying any words.
I'm literally gonna present my hand to Five and naturally he's gonna smell the
treat in my hand. And when he touches my hand, yes. To get the treat from it,
I'm gonna mark that with a yes. I'll show you again.
Simply putting it in front of his face. Yes. Good boy.
And letting him steal the food. And you're gonna repeat this step. Yes.
Good boy. Many times. So I'm yessing as soon as I feel him, yes.
Make contact with my hand.
So once I've done a bunch of repetitions of offering my hand with the food in
it, the next step is teaching him to do this a little bit more independently.
Now he's going to assume there's gonna be treat in my hand,
except this time I'm gonna pull a fast one on him and I'm not gonna put any food
there. However,
I need to be ready to quickly reward him before he has a chance to think about
other things. So if he touches my, his nose to my hand on this one,
I'm going to say yes, and I'm gonna quickly deliver the food.
I know you're excited.
I'm gonna quickly deliver the food to my top hand to make sure the value stays
here. So I know I'm holding food in this hand,
but I don't want him to do an exercise with this hand.
And then me feeding with the opposite hand.
It's gonna make him think about paying attention over here.
So it's gonna look something like this. Yes. Good boy.
Yes. Good boy. Yes. Good. So do you see how I mark?
The moment I feel him touch my hand. I say yes. And then reward.
Now I have done this a little bit with Five before.
So he is touching pretty easily,
but there are some dogs that you might present your hand.
They'll smell your hand from a distance and say, I don't see any treat there.
I don't smell any treat there.
So you might have to do more repetitions of going back to putting the food in
your hand. So if you try this and you're yes, good boy. And your puppy,
doesn't not, or your dog doesn't touch your hand immediately.
Don't worry about it.
It just means you need to put a little bit more money in the bank.
You need to go back few more repetitions of actually putting a physical piece of
food. Yes. Good boy. In your hand to build a little bit more value,
but the name of the game here is you touch yes. My hand.
I'm gonna give you a reward.
Five is starting to get the idea that he should tap his nose to my hand,
which is great.
But there's two progressions I wanna make before I can start to utilize this in
situations where it's going to be helpful. Number one,
I need to put it on a queue. So some type of command and number two,
I need to make sure that he can touch my hand regardless of where I put it so
that I can use it in different circumstances to either refocus him or to get him
a little bit closer to me.
So I'm gonna start off by just offering my hand in a few different places and
see if he can seek it out again. I'm not gonna add a word quite yet.
I'm just gonna do one step at a time. Yes. Good boy. I might try it over here.
Yes. Good. Oops. Freebie. Yes. Good boy.
Yes. Good. Yes. Good boy. Here's a hard one.
Yes. Oh good.
Okay. So he didn't offer, so I'm gonna try it again. Yes. Yay. Good boy.
Very good. So try practicing in different, um,
positions to ensure that your dog understands that the behavior is gonna earn a
reward and that once you do that, you're ready to add a command.
Adding a cue to this exercise is extremely easy.
Provided your dog is offering the behavior very, uh, very quickly and reliably.
All you're going to do is just before, they're about to touch your hand.
You're gonna throw in the command that you're looking for to play a little word
association. So I'm pretty confident that when I flash my hand,
he's gonna touch it. So watch the timing of when I give my cue. Tap. Yes.
Good boy. Tap. Yes. Good boy. Do you see how I throw it in there?
Just before he does the behavior tap? Yes. Good boy.
Tap. Yes. Good boy.
So my timing of the yes is still the same once I've done that a few times,
then I can put it all together. Tap. Yes. Good boy.
Now I just did something wrong.
Maybe I shouldn't tell you what it is.
Maybe you should go back and try and figure out what it is and post in the
comments below. I just, I don't even wanna give it away.
You tell me what I just messed up. Now I'm gonna do it. Correct? Tap. Yes.
Good boy. Tap. Yes. Good boy. Tap.
Yes. Good boy. This is a cute trick. It's fun to do. It's easy to teach.
It's a great way to get more focused from your puppy,
but there's a lot of other ways that you can work on getting better focused from
your pup. And if you wanna learn some of that, watch the video right here.
If you're looking for some personalized training for you and your puppy,
and you wanna work with me and the rest of our amazing McCann Dogs team,
make sure you check out our online course called Puppy Essentials.
The link for that is in the description below. And on that note, I'm Kayl.
This is Five alive. Yes. Good boy. Happy training.