Recall

We decided to do some fun recall training with Cody. Recall is a vital skill often overlooked. It is as important as house training, but while house training is the first thing worked on recall frequently falls by the side! However recall can save a dogs life when it slips a collar or harness on a walk, when it slides out the front door, or even when it sees a cat, small animal, or a friendly face across the street and darts into traffic. Being able to turn the dog around is a skill that can never be overtrained or overemphasized.

To start with, Derek and I stood on opposite ends, each with a baggie of treats. We'd come about halfway up, then call Cody with a "Cody, HERE!" and take off running. We could have stood there and called him, but running away encourages the dog to chase and increases their reinforcement for coming to us. Once there, we touch his collar while feeding treats.  Touching his collar is vital - if he ever gets loose I need to be able to grab his collar without him shying away from my hand because I haven't done it enough to associate it with good things!

This is a very fun game. Cody can make mistakes but there aren't any corrections, only lost chances at reinforcement. If Cody doesn't come to a person, then the other person goes neutral position. This means standing still, avoiding talking, touching, or looking at the dog, and if need be, turning his back on him as well. Meanwhile the other person is watching for some acknowledgement from Cody such as Cody glancing back, turning and coming towards the person, or in extreme cases, even things like small head movements or ear flicks! When the dog successfully recalls there is a big party for him working through that and making a good decision.

In this next video Cody has two failed trials. In the first he pauses in front of Derek and tries several attempts to get his attention. He figures out that Derek isn't giving him anything and so he trots off. When he disengages from Derek that is my cue to grab his attention and reinforce for coming to me. It doesn't matter if he was already coming to me or if I verbally caught his attention - I said his cue of "Cody, HERE!" and he came to me, so he gets praise and rewards.

There are several opportunities to teach a recall, and its good to use a variety. If you're out walking on leash, then randomly call your dog's name and the cue ("Cody, here!") and reward when they come into you. It doesn't matter that its only 2-4' recall - we are rewarding the action of turning back towards us and coming into our space - the distance can be 2' or 200'!! We do want to work at varying distances, but we don't start out by working a recall off leash at a dog park on a busy Saturday! Start small and build up! Some ways to practice recall -

- Call from different rooms in the house
-  Toss a toy, then when the dog chases the toy call the dogs name and start running across the room
- Walk down a moderately busy street and recall on-leash
- Walk into a busier street or quiet pet store and recall
- Take a dog on a long-line of 20-40" and practice recalling in a park, starting out with short distances and working up to longer
- Walk by dog parks and recall on leash, starting with a short 4-6' leash and working up to the long-line
- Walk by a busy wildlife area filled with birds and squirrels (or at least their smells!) and recall off interesting smells and droppings


Below is another example of teaching the recall. Instead of bouncing between people, I hold Cody by his harness and Derek calls him and starts running. Before he just bounced between us, but now I'm holding him back just a split second so when I release him he is really raring to go. You can feel a dog increase their drive in the bunching of their muscles, the strength they show when they try to launch away from you, and some dogs will even vocalize!

And of course it's good to change the picture up a bit and work it on the other side as well!