Fido COME!

If there was one thing I feel that every pet our NEEDS to do, is teach their dog a solid recall. Big, Small, Old, Young, this is command is nessecary for your dog's survival, in our world fraught with danger. 

I unfortunately, have learned first hand, that having a dog with no/bad recall, is extremely stressful. Meet R--, a female black lab, I was raising to one day be a service dog. She was the second puppy I'd raised every, and we were bound and determined to do "everything" right with her. However, despite our good intentions, we didn't quite grasp the concept of what teach a good recall meant. And thus we had a dog, who, when she ran (which happened all too frenqunetly. In a house with six children, someone was ALWAYS leaving the door open) she didn't come back. 

R** - Puppy #2 - 2006

Why? She knew it in the house! She's just being stubborn! 

No.. she ran without looking back, because she knew, that coming back would  = grumpy owner, having her freedom restricted, and more than likely winding up in a crate. None of which sounds good for a rambunctious lab puppy on the lamb. 

Let me tell you, it was NOT fun, looking for a black dog, at 11:00PM, who also happened to be in heat. 

Since that time, I've made the "recall cue" one of the first things we teach the dogs as soon as they set foot in my house. Especially since I live beside a busy road, and don't have a completely fenced yard. 

So here's what I do. I teach my dogs at least two recall cues. I have my attention getter recalls, which are the dogs name, my cars horn, a whistle, or me whistling. Then I have the actually cue word for come which in my case is "come". The attention getter is when the dog is at a distance, or out of sight of me, this way I know I'll have a better chance of the dog coming to me, because he will (hopefully) have un-focused on whatever long enough to listen to me. Then the actual word when I see the dog is looking, or already coming to me.


Here are some Tips I've gathered: 

1. DO: Pick a recall word: If your dog is older and has learned that the word "come" could mean something unpleasant (in the dog's mind of course, for example, baths, going into the house etc..) than pick another word, that he has no association with. For example "Here" or "Back" or "Let's Go". 
2. DO: Always start teaching your dog in a low distraction room. I start with a pocket full of "fun" treats (nothing boring like kibble, and yes dogs do have food preferences..;) running backwards saying your dogs name, once they come to you, stop and reward.
   "Puppy Come! YES! GOOD PUPPY! WHAT A GREAT DOG!" Throw a party for you dog. After all, coming is a the best thing they could do. Keep your voice tones "happy" regardless! 
3. DO: Practice this daily, in different rooms of your house. Reward every-time you use the word come! This is not a cue you want to fade rewards from. 
4. DO: practice recalls in fenced areas or with Spot on a long leash until Spot’s recall is reliable.Safety first. (via Boulder Dog)
5. DO: play ‘catch and release’. Call out your recall word, run away, have a party when Spot catches up to you and then “release” Spot to go play again. This teaches Spot that ‘coming’ is really cool. He gets to have goodies and to go back to playing. We don’t want Spot to associate ‘coming’ with the ‘fun ending’. (via Boulder Dog)
6. DO: Play games such as Tug-Of-War or Fetch when your dog arrives! Remember the word Reward does not have to mean treat. If your dog is a ball addict, than THROW THAT BALL! 
7. DO:  ALWAYS praise the dog for coming to you and reward them with a happy voice or a treat or a pet or something, no matter what they were doing before then. Remember they are DOGS they have no evil intent towards us as humans, no matter what you think. Promise. Its an animal. :)
8. DON'T: Use your recall word have your dog do something HE deems as unpleasant. For instance, I don't "Call" my dog Texas to come and be picked up. Great way to poison the cue as we say. 
9. DON'T: Chase your dog 
10. DON'T: Call your dog unless you are certain they will respond to you, see my paragraph about attention getters. You don't want your dog to learn to ignore your cue until you've screamed it five times, or you sound mad. 
11. DON'T: Ever call your dog for something bad, such as baths, crating, going inside, or punishment.

Whew! What a lot of information, but it seems that the dog training community agrees that recall is important. Now I do want to note, that each dog learns differently (just like humans) and are "rewarded" by different thing. Check out this post on what classifies as a "reward".


Another thing I do, is make going home, just as fun as leaving, so as soon as I open the door, I scatter the remaining treats in the door way and let the dogs gather them up. So not only do they want to come to me, going inside is not a "bad" thing either.


Still feel that you needs something else? Check out these resources for more information.


Remember, great recall is not going to happen in a night, or three, it may take a couple of weeks. However, if you are consistent, one day you too can have a dog like this. 

Or... this :)