Month: December 2025

Your Face Is A Stop Sign

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Seeing your face signals your dog to stop. Don’t believe it? It’s easy to test. Invite your dog to run with you. You’re both going along together, facing the same way. If you suddenly stop and look at your dog, they’ll stop, too. And stare you in the face.

When you have a conversation with another person, it’s considered polite to look at them. Dogs are the same. Your dog always wants to see your face. 

In some ways, that’s a wonderful thing. Doesn’t everyone make funny sounds to get dogs to look? And if we get the adorable head tilt, we keep doing it.

Not always what we want

There are times, however, that you don’t want your dog to stop and look at you. You’d think that calling your dog to “Come!” is easy and natural. 

It’s not. If you’re standing still, facing your dog, and call them, they may not move an inch. They can see you, but your face is a stop sign. 

Motion triggers motion

When this happens, most people will sweep an arm back, encouraging the dog to move. It usually works. It also means that your dog doesn’t have a reliable recall. 

In Obedience competition, the rules require you to stand absolutely still when you call your dog. You can’t do any of the things that come naturally. You can’t back up a step, pat your leg, move your head. Any handler motion when a verbal command is used is considered a “double command” and not allowed.

This exercise, done correctly, demonstrates that your dog knows the word and what to do when they hear it. 

Good to know

Most people aren’t competing in Obedience. They just want their dogs to come when called. The easiest and fastest way to teach that is the Chase Recall. Your motion spurs your dog to move.

It’s true with all dog behaviors. One of the most difficult parts of “Stay!” for dogs is sitting still while you walk around. Most dogs will either swivel on their hindquarters to keep watching you, or get up entirely.

Take advantage

Knowing that your dog always wants to zero in on where you’re facing, you can use that to direct your dog’s learning. When teaching “Place!” you stare at the dog bed. Your interest in an object will make it intriguing for your dog.

That’s the principle that lots of our games are based on. The ones that involve manipulating objects start with you staring at the object. The ones that require the dog to move somewhere start with you looking there.

We tried it today. One of the behaviors we teach our dogs is to walk sideways. When facing each other, the dog’s natural tendency is to move their front legs in line with us, but their back end tends to go crooked. Today we tried the behavior looking at where we’re going (to the side) rather than at our dog. It works. 

Watch where you’re going

When we were learning agility handling, one of the first things we were taught was that dogs will follow your shoulder. They go where your shoulder indicates. If you’re running or walking straight ahead, keep your shoulders square. If you’re moving to your right, that’s where you orient your upper body. 

Your dog is attuned to every move you make and is keenly aware of your body language. If you can’t figure out why your dog is moving a certain way, check yourself. You may be giving them a signal you don’t intend. Like looking straight at them when you want them to keep moving.

Dog Training Game: Which Bucket

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When we were kids, our mom worked in Downtown Chicago, in the Loop. During the summer, we would take the “El” into the city to meet her for lunch at the Veranda Room in Marshall Field’s department store. No, there were no dogs there. What was at Field’s, above the first floor cosmetics department, was a magnificent mosaic ceiling, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. 

Why this trip down memory lane? Because it gave us great joy to stand in the cosmetics department and stare up at the ceiling made of more than a million pieces of iridescent glass. When our necks got tired, we’d look back to ground level and realize that everybody around us was staring up at the ceiling, too. People do that. If you really look at something, everyone around you will stop and look.

So will dogs. And that’s how you start playing the “Which Bucket?” game with your dog.

Variation on a theme

Quite a few of the games we play with our dogs involve them retrieving something and putting it someplace else – the Ring Stacking Game, for one. It’s also the nuts-and-bolts of “Put Your Toys Away.”

The dog only has one place to put whatever it is.

But what if there were two? Or more? And what will the dog do if both containers are identical? or different? All of these options are ways to refresh any “put it away” game. If you just want to add a fun challenge to your game, use any variation and let your dog have fun.

Directed aim

If you want to use the game to strengthen your training connection with your dog, try directing your dog to a specific container. There are a couple ways of doing this. The first is to just look at the container you want your dog to use. Just like staring at the mosaic ceiling, pretend that it’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Bend over, get as close as you can. 

Keep up a dialogue with your dog. Encourage them, talk to them. Invite them over to check out the neato-keeno container. Remind them to bring the toy/ring/block with them. Talk to your dog and project some enthusiasm and energy. Dogs respond to the atmosphere in the room, so make it fun.

Point it out

The other way to direct your dog to the bin you want them to drop the object in is to point at it. We’ve talked about how some dogs naturally follow a point. For others, it’s a learned skill. But all dogs are capable of it – it’s been part of Obedience competition for years. 

Put the two containers out and sit on the floor about equal distance from each one. Bring a bunch of objects you want your dog to put away. We used the dive rings from our ring-stacking game. Hand one of the objects to your dog and point, with one hand or both, to the container you want the dog to put it in. Be sure you also look where you want your dog to go, not at your dog. Facing your dog always stops them. Looking where you want them to go gives them direction. 

When the dog moves away from you, toward the container you indicated, celebrate! You’ve just opened another line of communication with your best friend.