Exercise is not just important because it can tire out your dog; structured play and exercise with your dog can build engagement and deepen your relationship as well.

Engagement is about teaching your dog to look to you for what he wants and that includes when your dog wants to play.

Teaching engagement can be lots of fun for everyone. In my case, whenever l go to the beach l always play some fun games with Anja so she gets into the habit of anticipating a fun game with me instead of just run away to do her own thing.

Here is a short clip of us playing fetch. We played together and she always came back for more. It is great exercise for her but also a game changer for our relationship.

Training a dog to pay attention to the owner during play let our dogs understand that spending time playing with us is fun fun fun. Lots of dogs think their owners are good for affection and food but when they go to a new place and want to have some fun they will ignore their owners.

To teach our dogs to engage, we should spend these fun moments with our dogs as an active participant--not just standing on the sideline as a spectator.

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