Day Twelve -- M.O.S.T.

Attention is a beautiful thing. Without it, we're not going to get a response from any request we give our dogs. Attention is as easy as pie at home...

But it can prove to be very challenging in new or distracting situations. There is an acronym I like to use to help me remember what things can distract my dog and what things I can use to get my dogs attention back. M.O.S.T. stands for Movement, Odor, Sound, and Touch.

Movement can be toys, other animals, people, leaves, or other things that might entice Thunder to chase or play.

I can use things like wiggling my fingers, moving backwards, walking more quickly, or waving a toy back and forth to create movement that will get her attention back on me.

Dogs are good at using their noses to detect all sorts of odors. Food and other animals are usually high on the priority list. One little whiff of something and your dog could be following her nose instead of your instructions.

We can use odor by waving a treat under her nose and luring her towards us. Sometimes the smell of treats on our hands is enough to get her attention.

Music, traffic, people talking, dogs barking...anything can divert her attention.

But I can make noises with my mouth, whistle, call her name, clap my hands, pat my leg, etc. to get her attention back on me.

Just as someone or something touching Thunder can distract her, I can get her attention with a light tap on the hip or by goosing her a little bit.

Lots of praise when she does bring her attention back to me. She has a choice and she chose to pay attention to me.

I'll usually use these things in combination with one another. I'll wiggle a treat under her nose while I'm moving backwards and encouraging her with my voice. I try to do these things before she has completely committed to the distraction. I am always scanning the environment looking for things that might take her attention away. Once something is spotted, I work right away on getting her attention on me. I'll increase the rate I'm reinforcing her, increase the value of the treat, talk to her a lot, and get distance from the distraction if I need it.

Her ability to handle distractions gets better over time with practice but she's still young and it's a bit like having butterflies in the brain sometimes.