'Faking' friendliness in dogs?

[fickla]

when you call your dog's name wont he look at you to see what you want? how this is different from "watch" command?

It doesn't have to be any different. I personally don't have a "watch me" command as I play the name game a ton with a puppy and actively train that their name means look at me. However, most people over use their dog's name so much, whenever we pet them we coo their name, so dog's learn to ignore their name pretty quickly. People also tend to repeat their dog's name a lot in commands and this also equals a dog ignoring their name.

So you don't have a specific cue like "Watch me" to get your dog's attention, but most people need it. Either way, actively training eye contact is what's important.

 

[jackienmutts]

Fickla, I agree with you, that the eye contact is what's important, but when an aggressive dog is on a walk and sees that Scary Dog, his eyes are going to remain locked on that DOG (that hard stare making things even worse), he won't be glancing at us, and certainly not if we just say his/her name, we'll just be background babble. Until I started working with my fear-aggressive girl, I never had a solid "watch" either, but wow, is it important. Honestly, they may not respond to their name, but hopefully, they will glance up to "watch" and get rewarded heavily for it - and then you can go from there (either turning and going in the opposite direction, or remaining where you are and feeding til the Scary Dog has passed). That was the point I was trying to make, and why it's so important for a "watch" in this circumstance.

 

[rockythepain]

Thanks Guys