How To Help Your Dog To Check In

Once your dog is reliably looking away and then looking back at you, we want to continue to mark that and gradually increase the distractions and duration. Try moving the treats to a different location, having them on a table or pocket rather than in your hand. 

Then build up a bit of duration, 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds. For a check in we don’t need longer than 5 seconds as the idea is to allow our dogs to check in, go check something out and check in again. For duration focus that’s a different exercise but this builds a great foundation.

Distractions can start with just objects on the floor, can they look at something new and back to you like a box? can they walk with you and check in?