How do I train my dog not to escape? A Step-by-Step Guide

How To Reduce Your Dog’s Urge To Escape

Ultimately, you should consult your veterinarian or a professional pet behaviorist for advice on how to keep your dog happy, healthy, and home.

There are, however, a few steps you can take to remedy your dog’s desire to escape:

Spend time with your dog. Make sure they feel comfortable in their home and attached to members of the household.

Train your dog. Learning new tricks and commands will keep them from growing bored and seeking their own fun elsewhere. Teaching them a reliable recall will also help you call them back to you if they start to run away.

Provide plenty of exercise, both mental and physical. A tired dog is a happy dog. If necessary, hire a pet sitter or dog walker to help out when you can’t provide enough exercise on your own.

Give your dog a variety of indoor and outdoor toys, and rotate in different ones from time to time. They don’t have to be brand new. Your dog won’t care if the toys have been chewed on or batted around; the novelty is what’s important.

Arrange for supervised play dates if your dog loves the company of other canines, but there aren’t any others in your home. They’ll be less inclined to search out other dogs if they have regular access to their buddies.

Spay or neuter your dog before they reach sexual maturity, typically at about six months of age. This is by far the best way to keep sexual roaming to a minimum.

Why Does Your Dog Keep Trying To Escape?

Boredom, isolation, and sexual roaming are most often the motives in dogs’ habitual attempts to escape or run away.

Not surprisingly, spayed or neutered dogs who receive plenty of exercise and lots of attention from their humans are the least likely to become four-legged escape artists. A happy dog who feels like part of the family will usually want to stick around.

A couple of caveats to keep in mind, however: Some breeds — such as Border Collies, who are bred to herd sheep — truly enjoy “working” and will go looking for tasks in the absence of being given any.

Other breeds, like Siberian Huskies, are notorious “Houdini” dogs who will try to escape for any reason at all. In fact, some might see your escape prevention efforts as challenges to thwart. They may try it just because it’s more fun than whatever else they were doing.

And puppies and adolescent dogs are especially prone to wanderlust if they don’t have sufficient outlets to release their energy. Of course, almost any canine will follow their nose if the scent is powerful enough — important to remember when your neighbors are barbecuing.

Dog breeds with high wanderlust potential and prey drives may be more naturally inclined to chase wildlife, wherever they may find it.

Other dogs bolt out of fear or anxiety. This is especially common during thunderstorms, fireworks celebrations like the 4th of July, and other times when loud noises spook them. If that’s the case, you may need to bring your dog to the vet for noise anxiety treatment recommendations.

Does your dog run away when called?

If your dog is taking off, you need to think like a dog:

No dog decides to run away in order to spite the owner. The dog just chooses whatever seems to pay off more. If you are in a very distracting area with a lot of smells and places to explore, it is likely that your dog sees a lot of value in running away and little value in coming to you. This is especially true if coming to you has in the past been followed by a bad experience: perhaps you scolded him or taken him home straight away.

It is really important that you are never negative when your dog comes to you, even if you are annoyed and frustrated because you have been calling him for a long time. Your dog will otherwise very quickly associate coming to you with being punished, and choose to just not come again in the future.

The world around him never punishes your dog. It is always welcoming and interesting. It offers him things to smell, maybe some trash to eat, wildlife to chase … if you want to be able to compete with the world around your dog, you need to be equally appealing.

You should start recall training already with very little puppies. It can begin the day that you bring your puppy home. Take a delicious dog treat and show it to your puppy. Back up just a few feet and wiggle the treat enticingly and call your puppy. When he runs after you, give him the treat and shower him with pets and praise. He should be wiggling with excitement!

You should play this game with your puppy every day. Soon he will not run away at all anymore, just in fact come racing to you when he hears his name called.

Consistency is the most important aspect here. It will not be beneficial to only play this once or twice and then stop. You need to give your puppy a lot of repetition in order to thoroughly learn the behavior!

Start practicing your recall in a really easy environment. For some puppies even the backyard is too exciting. You can practice in your living room or hallway!

Show your puppy a treat and back up a few steps. Call him and give him the treat!

Show your puppy a treat and run away from him. Don’t go too fast or he will be discouraged and might not come. You always want to make this easy enough that you pup can catch you!

Gradually take your game into more and more locations

ALWAYS make sure to give your pup a delicious treat for coming!

You cannot teach a reliable recall to your puppy in a day, a week or even a month. You should consistently practice your recall a little bit at a time for the first year in your puppy’s life and always reward him for coming to you.

What TO do and what NOT to do if your dog runs away and doesn’t listen

It can be very dangerous if your dog tries to escape while you are away from home and they are alone. Your dog is in danger of being injured, causing a nuisance, or even being taken.