Help with recall???

Whats the best way to teach recall?

Ive had Xena off the lead out in the woods and at first she was really good, coming back every time. But the past week or so its like shes playing deaf. She`ll be sniffing at a molehill when i tell her to come and she`ll keep her head down but just move her eyes to look at me but she completely ignores me.

As she has now done it a couple of times i dont dare let her off in case we bump into someone or another dog etc.

So how can i teach her that when i call her she has to come back?

Ive tried calling her back regulary but not putting her back on the lead so its not a case of she just doesnt want her walk to end?

Please help as i really enjoyed walking her off the lead?

Begin in the house - call her for her dinner etc. Every time she comes to you, reward and say Come. She`ll soon get the idea.
Repetion and Reward are key for training IMO.
When you use your recall command when out, have the dog on a long line so you can reel her back if necessary - and make your rewards wonderful.

I empathise, as it has taken a lot of hard work to establish any form of recall with my dog. However, I found the following tips really have helped to get his recall to about 97%.


1 - do not use his name. You need a specific recall cue; if the one you use now is being ignored, then pick a new one and stick to it. I did this, it really worked.

2 - do not ever give the recall command more than once, as you are then teaching your dog that it is OK to ignore the command. If you recall and your dog ignores you, then IMMEDIATELY go over to her, and quietly and calmly put her back on the lead.

Wait ten minutes or so, then try again. You can do it on the lead if you use a Flexi, for instance, just let the dog wander away a bit then recall.

In this way you gradually teach your dog that recalling on time = FREEDOM!


3 - practise constantly at home. Recall your dog from one room to another, from upstairs to downstairs, from the garden to inside the home, and so on. Keep practising because the aim is to make the recall instinctive - ultimately your dog won't even think about obeying or not, the response to return to you will be automatic!


4 - SMOKEY BEAR on this site gave me some fab advice: if your dog is motivated by food, then do NOT just give treats as reward for recall. Instead, give your dog's food ration for the day - they get a bit each time they come when called!

If they don't come, they don't get that ration. You may end up with a bit of a hungry dog but they soon learn and this really does help motivate your dog to obey the recall! You won't have to do this stage for very long, probably.


5 - make the recall fun!!! When my dog reaches me, I show him that I'm putting the treat behind my back, then he gets to guess which closed fist it's in and when he gets it right, I make a HUGE fuss of him! If he gets it wrong then it doesn't matter, he knows it can only be in the other hand so he touches that hand with his nose and again, treat and huge fuss!

You can use a tug toy, or any form of game to make the actual returning to you more fun

Also start praising your dog the SECOND she looks at you, NOT only when she reaches you.

This may help.

Why can’t I get a reliable recall?

‘Come’ is no harder to train than any other behaviour but in real life it has a huge number of criteria that have to be raised one at a time in order to guarantee success.

Often when puppies are brought home to their new owners this is the first time they have ever been separated from their dam and siblings and so they naturally attach themselves to their new family by following them about everywhere. Owners find this quite attractive and wrongly assume that this trait will continue into adolescence/adulthood, whatever the circumstances. A dangerous trap to fall into…


At some point in time, usually from around 6 – 10 months, depending on the individual, “Velcro” dog will morph into “Bog off” dog (this is especially true of a breed that has been developed to exhibit a high degree of initiative). This is the time when owners suddenly realize that their dog will not recall when it sees another dog/person etc.

Not only is this inconvenient but potentially dangerous as the dog could be at risk of injury from a car/train/another dog etc.

How and when do I start with a puppy?

My advice is to prepare for this inevitability from the day you take your puppy home. If you are lucky the breeder will have started this process whilst still in the nest by conditioning the puppies to a whistle blown immediately before putting the food bowl down during weaning.

Dogs learn by cause and effect ie sound of whistle = food. If you, the new owner, continue this from the moment your puppy arrives you will lay down strong foundations for the future.

By using the whistle in association with meals/food you need to establish the following criteria:

• Come from across the room.
• Come from out of sight
• Come no matter who calls
• Come even if you are busy doing something else
• Come even if you are asleep.
• Come even if you are playing with something/someone else
• Come even if you are eating

Once this goal has been realized in the house, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the garden.

Once this goal has been realized in the garden, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the park/field etc.

To train this, or any other behaviour:

1. Make it easy for the dog to get it right
2. Provide sufficient reward

Do not expect a dog to come away from distractions in the park until you have trained it to come to you in the park when no diversions are around. Be realistic and manage your expectations; your sphere of influence/control over your dog may be only 20m to begin with, therefore do not hazard a guess that the dog, at this level of training, will successfully recall from 50m or more away. Distance, like every other criterion, must be built up over time.

Some simple rules to follow when training the recall:

• Whistle/signal/call only once (why train the dog to deliberately ignore your first command?)
• Do not reinforce slow responses for the dog coming eventually after it has cocked its leg, sniffed the tree etc (you get what you train!)
• If you know that the dog will not come back to you in a certain situation, go and get him rather than risk teaching him that he can ignore you. (If you have followed the programme correctly you will never put your dog in a position to fail).
• Practise recalling the dog, putting him on the lead for a few seconds, reinforce with food/toy etc and immediately release the dog. Do this several times during a walk etc so that the dog does not associate a recall with going on the lead and ending the walk or being put on the lead with the cessation of fun.
• Eventually, when the behaviour is very strong, alternate rewards ie verbal praise, physical praise, food, toy and also vary the “value” of the rewards, sometimes a plain piece of biscuit, sometimes a piece of cooked liver etc so that you become a walking slot machine (and we all know how addictive gambling can be)!

In my experience recall training should be consistent and relentless for the first two years of a dog’s life before it can be considered truly dependable. You should look on it as a series of incremental steps, rather than a single simple behaviour, and something that will require lifelong maintenance.

What about an older or rescue dog?

Follow the same programme as outlined above however for recalcitrant dogs that have received little or no training, I would recommend dispensing with the food bowl and feeding a dog only during recalls to establish a strong behaviour quickly.

Your training should be over several sessions a day, which means you can avoid the risk of bloat. It is essential that the dog learns that there will be consequences for failure as well as success.

Divide the day’s food ration up into small bags (between10 – 30), if the dog recalls first time, it gets food, if it does not, you can make a big show of saying “too bad” and disposing of that portion of food (either throw it away or put aside for the next day).

Again, raise the criteria slowly as outlined in puppy training.

Hunger is very motivating!

For those of you who believe it unfair/unhealthy to deprive a dog of its full daily ration, not having a reliable recall is potentially life threatening for the dog ……………

How do I stop my dog chasing joggers/cyclists/skateboarders/rabbits/deer?

Chasing something that is moving is a management issue. Do not put your dog in a position where it can make a mistake. Again you need to start training from a pup but if you have already allowed your dog to learn and practise this behaviour you may need to rely on a trailing line until your dog is desensitised to these distractions and knows that listening to you results in a great reinforcement. Chasing is a behaviour much better never learned as it is naturally reinforcing to the dog, which makes it hard for you to offer a better reinforcement. If you want to have a bombproof recall while your dog is running away from you then use the following approach:

Your goal is to train so that your dog is totally used to running away from you at top speed, and then turning on a sixpence to run toward you when you give the recall cue.

You need to set up the training situation so that you have total control over the triggers. For this you will need to gain the co-operation of a helper. If you have a toy crazy dog you can practice this exercise by throwing a toy away from the dog towards someone standing 30 or 40 feet away. At the instant the toy is thrown, recall your dog! If the dog turns toward you, back up several steps quickly, creating even more distance between the you and the toy and then throw another toy in the opposite direction (same value as one thrown)..

If the dog ignores you and continues toward the thrown object, your “helper” simply picks the ball up and ignores dog. When dog eventually returns (which it will because it’s getting no reinforcement from anyone or anything), praise only. Pretty soon the dog will start to respond to a recall off a thrown toy. You will need to mix in occasions the toy is thrown and the dog is allowed to get it ie you do NOT recall if you want to make sure it does not lose enthusiasm for retrieving.

For the food obsessed dog, you can get your helper to wave a food bowl with something the dog loves in it and then recall the dog as soon as you let it go to run towards the food; again if the dog ignores you and continues to the food, your helper simply ensures the dog cannot access the food and start again. (It is extremely important that the helper does not use your dog’s name to call it for obvious reasons).

Gradually increase the difficulty of the recall by letting the dog get closer and closer to the toy/food. Praise the moment the dog turns away from the toy/food in the
early stages of training. Don't wait until the dog returns to you; the dog must have instant feedback.

Once the dog is fluent at switching directions in the middle of a chase, try setting up the situation so that it is more like real life. Have someone ride a bike/run/skate past. (It is unrealistic to factor in deer/rabbits however if your training is thorough the dog will eventually be conditioned to return to you whatever the temptation in most contexts).

Until your training gets to this level, don't let the dog off-lead in a situation in which you don't have control over the chase triggers. Don't set the dog up to fail, and don't allow it to rehearse the problem behaviour. Remember, every time a dog is able to practise an undesirable behaviour it will get better at it!

Most people do not play with toys correctly and therefore the dog is not interested in them or, if it gets them, fails to bring it back to the owner.

Play the two ball game, once you have a dog ball crazy. Have two balls the same, throw one to the left, when the dog gets it, call him like crazy waving the next ball; as he comes back throw the other ball to the right and keep going left right so that YOU are the centre of the game and the dog gets conditioned to return to you for the toy. Once this behaviour is established you can then introduce the cues for out and then make control part of the game ie the game is contingent on the dog sitting and then progress to a sequence of behaviours.

HTH

TabithaJ

When I saw 'do not use his name' I was carried back about 30 yrs to when I had a GSD who was particularly difficult to recall.

At the training classes they said the same thing. Then, when that didn't work, they said DO NOT LOOK AT HER - she adores you - you use her name she jumps up to lick you - you look at her - she jumps up to lick you!

Eventually she was PERFECT at the recall IN THE TRAINING CLASSES - but blerdy useless the minute we got out the doors!

In fact she was a star pupil in that class - they used her as an example for others. But just my same ole nutty dog everywhere else!

Thank you all for your help. I will try everything thats been said and see how we get on

It sounds like you made a really good start its just building up the distractions
Dogs dont generalise well - which can mean that they come back when in the middle of a field with no distractions, but with their nose in a molehill that is a totaly different situation and they dont ness realise you actually mean to come back then
A friend of mine described it when they were busy as getting his doggy anserphone 'Teesh is busy right now, your command is important to him and he will get right back to you as soon as he can'

Build things up slowly. I think you are doing the right thing calling her back to you several times on a walk - and make it great fun
At the moment try and not call her back to you when she is really focused on something else - it is too big a step
Build it up slowly, call her when she is not distracted, make it great fun and when she is ZOOMING back to you every time then try calling her when she is slightly distracted and make that great fun

If you make a mistake and call her when she is more distracted than you though if she is good enough to make eye contact with you then turn around and run away from her as fast as you can (arms waving if noone is watching)
If she dosent even look up try hiding and keeping totaly quiet (assuming you are in a safe place)

Mind you I did that with Mia way too soon after I got her. Hiding in a bush with Ben keeping as quiet as we could - watching Mia happily playing with a stick on the beach - inddependant maddam!

Thank you everyone who posted here as I too will need this info. And good luck sara let us know how you get along

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone for your help on this thread as ive got Xena used to a whistle and her recall is so much better. Ive stuck at it. I did have to run the opposite way to her once but ive not had to do it since. so a massive massive thank you

Fab, remember, never stop training!