How do you teach a dog to check-in?

Teaching your dog to check in does require patience and persistence, and is not something you can expect to happen in a single training session. Get the right tools – a leash, a harness, a clicker, high-value training treats, and a treat pouch. Reward eye contact – take your dog for a walk in a calm, controlled environment or start a training session in your house. Without prompting, reward your dog every time they look up at you. Practice consistently – practice this enough times that your dog initiates looking at you in hopes of a reward. Be sure to pair the treat with a clicker sound or a word “like ‘yes!’” to eventually be able to phase out treats. Add distractions – once your dog consistently checks in with you, add some distractions like other people or animals, or cars passing by. Keep marking and rewarding whenever your dog initiates eye contact with you. Change the environment – when your dog gets really good at checking in regardless of distractions, you can take them to new environments and unpredictable surroundings. If you encourage your dog to check in with you frequently, you’ll start to notice it becoming a habit.

To teach a dog to check-in, reward your dog for simply paying attention to you during your walks. Often this behaviour is ignored by us humans because the dog is being good but if no value is added to the dog checking in then the dog is more likely to find the environment more rewarding and stop checking in completely. So pay attention to your dog during your walks and any time that they check in with you then reward them for this. In order to build focus and engagement with our dogs, it's important to reward them when they voluntarily offer us attention. Stand still with your dog on the lead- pay attention to them but do not chat to them, wait until they offer you attention when this happens, and mark with a click or 'Yes' and reward them for this. Reward your dog for offering you any attention, remember this is attention that they are choosing to offer you, you are not asking for it. If you are in an environment that is difficult for your dog to offer check-ins then you can imagine that you have a bubble around you, reward your dog for coming into that bubble and slowly shrink the bubble. Don't be stingy on this one.

You need an incentive to encourage your dog to come back - a really tasty treat or a fun game with a toy. Show your dog the toy or food. Run away a couple of paces then call your dog's name and say come in a friendly, exciting tone - getting down low can also encourage them to come back. As your dog comes to you, gently hold their collar and either feed them the treat or let them play with the toy. Gradually increase the distance that you are from your dog, until eventually you can call your dog in and out of the garden or from room to room. Ask a friend or partner to help take it in turns to gently hold your dog's collar whilst the other one walks a distance away and then calls the dog over. When practicing this command on walks, always take your dog's favourite treats and toys with you so you can continue to reward him when he comes back.