Watch Me is great for teaching your puppy to focus on you and can dramatically help with loose lead walking which you will learn soon.

I like to “capture” this behaviour. This means that as soon as the puppy is looking at me, I click and reward, try to keep eye contact with the puppy by moving a little (I avoid being too static) and reward the puppy for maintaining eye contact.

Another method is:

• Use a small treat, show it to your puppy and then move the treat near your eyes. As soon as the puppy looks up near your eyes, click and reward. Try to consistently use the same hand and finger placement.
• When you are starting to get good eye contact with your puppy, fade the lure but keep the same hand and finger placement. Add the “Watch me” command while the puppy does the behaviour. Ideally the click and the “Watch me” should be at the same time. Your puppy will start to associate the hand signal and the verbal cue with the behaviour.
• When the association is good you can start using the verbal cue without the need of the physical cue, although some people choose to keep using the physical cue as well.

Avoid rewarding when your puppy is sitting directly in front of you otherwise, the puppy may misunderstand and associate the behaviour with sitting in front of you instead of watching you. This is why I tend to move a little when I train this exercise, so the puppy has fewer opportunities to sit.

If your puppy is not food-orientated, you can try this game with a toy.

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