You Pair it With Something Negative
Dogs pick up on patterns quickly, so if responding to a recall means that the fun at the dog park is ending or you’re going to crate her for the rest of the day, it shouldn’t be a surprise if your dog is running away when you call. Yes, sometimes you have to call your dog to do something that’s not fun, but you should always try to have an interim moment of play or training to keep a “bumper” between the recall and the potentially negative or less-fun experience.
Now, Make Sure It Doesn’t Happen Again
Every time you let your dog get into a situation where they have the option of ignoring you, you reinforce unwanted behavior. After the dramatics of catching your loose dog are over, make plans to make sure it doesn’t happen again. To do that, say goodbye to off-leash time. If your dog’s recall is unreliable, they shouldn’t be off leash in public places—ever.
An alternative is to get a long training lead (15-30 feet), and attach it to your dog’s snug-fitting harness. Never use a collar, because the sudden force of running, reaching the end of the line, and jolting backward can seriously hurt a dog’s neck. Whether you’re out training or just having fun, keep your dog on the long lead. When you call them and they ignore you, you can reel them in so ignoring you isn’t an option.
Adding in Indoor Distractions
After you’ve successfully practiced recall training in different rooms, try adding in distractions. Do this one at a time – you want to always set your dog up for success.
For example, call your dog over just as someone else walks into the room. Or throw a ball in the opposite direction while calling your dog over. Try calling your dog from the opposite end of the house. Don’t pick a distraction that you know your dog won’t be able to resist. The more that you practice this successfully, the better at recall your dog will be.
My Dog Doesn’t Come When Called- How You Ruined Your Come Command
It happens to almost everyone. You taught your dog to come when you called at an early age using the standard method youll find in any book (or on any blog): calling your dogs name, then, when your dog comes to you, giving your dog a treat. Generally this method yields good results, especially when your dog is a puppy. However, at some point many, if not most dogs, will stop coming when called. Sometimes, not only do they NOT come, but they run in the opposite direction, in even-more-energized pursuit of whatever has their interest. In this article were going to discuss why this happens and what you can do to “rehab the recall”. When the time “comes”, you want them to head towards you with all of the energy and drive they can muster.
So…what happened? Why did your dog suddenly get all willful (seemingly)? Is it adolescence? Mid-life crisis? I mean, they KNOW what theyre supposed to be doing, right?
Well, yes and no. Lets talk for a minute about what your dog actually learned when you first trained them to come. We think that by calling their name and giving them a treat when they come to us that were actually teaching them to come – but in reality were teaching our dogs something slightly different. What your dog learned was that at the sound of their name (and, perhaps, the word “come”), they should go to the most INTERESTING thing in their presence. At a young age, before a dogs perception branches out to encompass more of the surrounding environment, the most interesting thing in their world is YOU. Especially when you have tasty treats. What they are learning isnt the mental concept, either – its the FEELING of pursuing whatever interests them with full force. For the time being, that feeling is associated with you and your tasty treats.
Eventually, however, the problem arises – because after receiving treat upon treat, your dogs interaction with you gets – well…less interesting! So lets say youre walking through a local park, and because you feel like taking your chances with the dog catcher your dog is offleash. Sparky is 20 feet away from you, when suddenly Sparky sees a squirrel. What do you do? You call “Sparky, come!” And what does Sparky do? He goes with the FEELING – in pursuit of the most interesting thing in his environment, which is that squirrel, not you.
Another way of saying “the most interesting thing in your dogs environment” is to say that – no matter what – our dogs are attracted to whatever in their environment has the highest value as a PREY object. When our dogs are young, all it takes is a treat to make you prey-like enough in their eyes. Soon however it begins to register with our dogs that we are also very predator-like (potentially exacerbated by training influenced by the need to be “the alpha”) – and our dogs actually develop resistance to us during high energy moments. Its possible that the first moment your dog “chases the squirrel” instead of coming to you when you call is when the amount of your “predator-ness” has finally exceeded your “prey-ness”.
In order to make yourself back into the most interesting thing in your dogs universe, you need to become the highest value prey object in your dogs world. That means that no matter when your dog feels stress (or is in a high energy situation), your dog will come to you to resolve the situation. If your dog doesnt come when you call, that simply means that youre not as attractive to your dog as you need to be.
Now there can actually be several steps to getting your dog to come when called if they are in a full sprint after another prey object (like that poor squirrel). At the point where theyre already engaged you have a lot to overcome in order to get yourself inserted into that circuit – so that theyll even hear “Sparky, come!”, much less respond. Well be covering some of those things (like getting your dog to lay down at a distance when theyre chasing a toy) in later articles. In the meantime, there are several things you CAN do to make yourself more attractive:
Follow these steps, and your dog will be able to put their attention back where it belongs – on you. It all boils down to the fundamentals of Natural Dog Training – and once your foundation is solid youll have no trouble improvising.