Hi Again!
I think recall is one of the trickiest things that we try to teach our dogs. Part of that is because we don't take into consideration how it looks from the dog's point of view. We seem to forget that dogs don't generalize commands and we don't practice it often enough. We tend to use it most when it's an emergency, like we're applying emergency brakes. That is not the way any command should work.
I like to keep people grounded in a training session by focusing on the 3D's distance, distraction and duration. It. How far you are from the dog? How far the dog is from their normal environment. That's what distance is. It. Distractions can be anything, like a car going by a child bouncing a ball or. Smelling something very interesting in the backyard. It. Anytime we are teaching a new skill, we need to be mindful of duration and how long we are asking the dog to perform this particular act. I know myself if I'm in a class that's more than 45 minutes and I don't get to change up, move around, or do some other form of mental exercise, my brain gets overloaded and my motivation for completing tasks gets low.
We tend to become frustrated with our dogs when they don't return as we call them. The frustration does nothing to sweeten the pot for them to return. What does tip the scales in our favor is if we have practiced it inside where it's boring, and then increased distraction and then increased distance. We are from the dog. It. By increasing one of the D's at a time. We set ourselves and our dogs up for success.
While there is no foolproof way to recall a dog that is awfully ish, we can. Tip. The odds in our favor. Yeah. For the first week I will ask you every time you put down food for the dog or give them a treat, use your recall word. That's how I start the puppies here. Every time I put down their food, I say puppy, puppy, puppy in a happy, quick way. Then when they hear that over time, it means the delivery of something good. So when I say it outside, I can slowly walk away from the food and have little parties and occasionally bonus streets. So for the first week, every time your dog gets fed something, say your recall word. Whether it's come or puppy, puppy or by my side, it doesn't matter what the phrase is, just be consistent and make it happy.
After that first week, your dog should be connecting your recall words with the delivery of something good. Now we can start to increase our distance from the dog and do more random times. So I would recommend running into the bedroom and if your dog is starting to follow you, even better recall should be fun and say puppy, puppy, puppy and give the dog a treat and then that's it. That's it. We just stop. There is no expectation. There is no now. We have to go to the vet. There is nothing else. Dog comes to you. They get a reward.
Once they are consistently coming to you on command, we're going to start adding some distractions. So toss up all the opposite way. Get your partner or your children to start bouncing balls or or clapping their hands or any of those kinds of things, And when your dog chooses to come to you, because that's starting to be the pattern in their brain. Always reward them. It.
Once the dog will basically walk through Lego on the floor and all the balls and all the toys and all the noise and all the chaos, when you use your recall word, you're ready to attach a long line and start working in the backyard.
You're going to start that work in very much the same way. Very low distraction, very low duration, very low distance. Once they are bouncing back to you. Easily and happily, you can allow them more of the long line work up to the 30 feet that you have. Once that is solid, you can start letting go of the leash and increasing the distance. Once distance is good with no distractions, you're going to shrink that distance back up and you're going to Add all the distractions back in again one at a time, and that's called proofing.
The takeaways are this. If your dog cannot perform a command reliably inside under Distance, distraction, and duration, they cannot perform it reliably outside. With new distractions, new distance, and new duration. It. When you are asking a dog to recall, you are asking them to leave an environment that is very appealing for them and to come to you. We counterbalance all those smells and all those sounds and all that movement. With that worn in pattern in their brain, recall word means good things.