Engagement Lesson 3: Phase 2 Engagement

Introduction

Purpose: Combine previous phases and give the dog the power to push you for fun!

Phase 2 Engagement

The next step relies on learning history from the home environment. To move on, it is assumed that your dog can offer eye contact in training situations at home or push you to work/play when there are no distractions around.

Combine both parts of Phase 1: take the dog places, allow them to acclimate, check in with you, show them great things, and leave.

The goal is that, because going places with you has predicted great things happening, your dog will quickly try to ask you for those great things. This is the start of creating the dog that pushes you to train!

In this phase, focus on keeping things short and sweet. Your human tendency will be to ask for more than you should, and you’re likely to make that mistake a few times throughout this process. Your dog should acclimate fairly quickly due to your work in Part 1 of Phase 1, and should expect cool things from you because of Part 2. When they do offer you their attention, you will have a good time with them, pack things up, and leave.

I find that most problems appear in this space when we start asking for too much work too soon. If we focus on building the duration of attention and play, we are building the dog’s bandwidth for work. Make the game too hard to win, and the dog’s bandwidth will diminish. Really take your time to build sustained engagement via movement together, social interaction, and reward events rather than skills.

Always have 3-5 places you’re training

One easy environment
Two to three mid-level environments
One to two difficult environments

Order of Events:

Set up your acclimation space & decide where you will party
Bring the dog to the acclimation space and settle in
Wait for the dog to focus their attention on you
Reward this check-in with a massive party (whatever that looked like in Phase 1 Part 2)
End the session, pack up, and leave.

Building Duration:

To build duration, you will insert what your dog likes: movement, social praise/interaction, before the reward event begins. If you get 2 seconds of sustained movement together, give at least 4 seconds of party time.

When your environment is easy, you can increase the duration. When the environment is more challenging, ask for a little less.

Multiple Reps

You can repeat this process several times per outing. I would give the dog a short rest in the car or take a walk around the area (if it's safe) before asking the dog to settle into acclimation again.

I find that asking the to acclimate again right after the party means that they won't acclimate, and that can lead to checking out during the party.

Take Your Time

Remember that the only thing for certain is that behavior is fluid! Especially when it comes to puppies and adolescents, what your dog finds challenging may change frequently. Overall, as you work on this, all environments should get easier over time, prompting you to seek out novel places to train in to keep building your dog’s ability to work in different settings. If you find that a place that was once easy is more difficult, adjust your list and expectations, and things should return to normal (or better than normal) within a few weeks. If your dog’s behavior change is rapid and extreme, visit the notes on behavior modification.

When you have consistent, sustained engagement with your dog in a variety of locations, the next phase will help you introduce skills into the conversation.

Troubleshooting

Here are some tips for navigating common issues.

What if my dog never asks for the fun to start?

Your location might be too overwhelming or interesting. You want the environment to be quiet enough that the dog can acclimate within 3-5 minutes or less.

What if my dog leaves during the fun?

Watch your video. Did something catch their attention, or was your duration before rewarding too long?

How do I know if I'm ready to move to the next phase?

You're ready to add skills when you have 10-15 seconds of sustained engagement: moving around and interacting socially before a reward event that lasts about the same length of time.