agree... i always tell owners you have the best position with your dogs... you have the opportunity, and time spent in developing communication, a relationship / connection. You can't train for everything and every situation. But you could get through any sudden situation with just very strong individual basics skills and communication working together. let them Be your helper at home no competition training,, just learning to help along side you, . how do you avoid clinginess and lack of independence.. Don't hen peck your dogs over every little detail, have off days to just go free style of no rules (when your in a safe place that they can't be harmed from making their own choices)

adding ::: acknowledge them.. when your doing nothing and your dog does something on their own, makes a choice you didn't ask for but was a good choice acknowledge them ...

 

Look up Denise Fenzi and Engagement. She pretty much wrote the book on it and teaches a great online course about this very topic!

 

Thanks! Looking her stuff over now...

https://denisefenzi.com/2015/02/14/stages-of-engagement-part-1/

 

I don't think there is such a thing as "over-engagement" in the way you're describing it. Clinginess or lack of independence do not have anything to do with the amount of engagement a dog has during training.

A dog who is very engaged during training may also be clingy or dependent, but one does not equal the other. A dog not engaged in training can also be clingy and dependent.

 

I reward engagement. No coercing to get eye contact for example. When offered it's rewarded. When I'm moving about dogs are often rewarded with a game so they prefer to keep an eye on what I'm doing.

See Susan Garrett for ways to get engagement too. She doesn't use the term but she definitely is expert at getting it and has a lot of information on the web. She's competition oriented but dog sports are just games with rules, the stuff applies to pet dogs too.

 

I reward engagement. No coercing to get eye contact for example. When offered it's rewarded.

I do the same as this. I also made a habit in the beginning on clicking and rewarding when something exciting happened. A dog barking, other loud sudden noise, etc. So now she automatically looks to me when something potentially distracting happens, looking for her reward.

 

This is my dog at an agility trial.

This is my dog actually running agility.

She's engaged with me in both, but she's also not on my heels and staring at my face when she has something she needs to be doing. Ie: Her actual *focus* is on the obstacle after the a-frame.

Over-engagement isn't a thing. The dog looking to you, focusing on you, paying attention to you during training, PUSHING you to engage with them and PLAY THE TRAINING GAME isn't the same as clinginess or neediness or lack of confidence. It just means a dog who really, really wants to work and play. It's sort of like saying giving your friends all your attention while you're having a conversation instead of also playing with your phone and watching a car go by over the shoulder means you can't function without your friend. They're unrelated.

And yeah, Denise has the book on engagement.

 

Like others have said, I've always rewarded engagement (eye contact, dropping back on a walk to walk next to me for a while). I also reward when something distracting happens and he decides to come to me instead of having a meltdown. But that doesn't mean he can't do things for himself. Sure, he shoves toys in my face to play sometimes, but that doesn't make him clingy. Sometimes I just ignore him until he goes and plays by himself, because, hey, I have to keep this house clean, don't I?

And sometimes keeping him engaged is very difficult. He's just over a year old, so I guess I expect it on occasion, and I've learned to recognize when his mind is on sniffing the yard thoroughly and let him do his thing until he's ready. Sometimes he's just not into it at all that day. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.