By Heidi Clayton
I use a lot of my dogs’ food as a reward to train them. This is especially true when I am teaching a reliable recall. I started teaching my puppies from a young age to come to me to get treats. In addition, I incorporate bending down to take hold of the collar or holding them. Here are some tips to make training a reliable recall a breeze.
I inevitably get asked this question: Will my puppy or dog only come to me for a treat? Here’s my answer: maybe, in the beginning.
In my house, coming to me is the most important thing my dogs can learn. I want it to always be rewarding for them as puppies. If that means offering them a treat, then so be it.
Remember that you are not as interesting to your puppy as you think you are. Maybe when you’re in the kitchen, your puppy will come toward you, drawn in by the scent of food. Otherwise, you have to compete for a puppy’s attention.
Try giving your puppy or dog a little jackpot of treats when they get to you while politely taking hold of their collar. This tells them that it is both rewarding and worth it to leave the fun they are having to come to you.
There is a reason to gently grab hold of their collar when the dogs come to you. Reaching down and habituating them to having their collar held when getting to you will save you the nightmare of chasing your dog around. God forbid, they get loose one day. Imagine yourself getting an inch away from grabbing their collars to catch them before they dart again. So many dogs that come to me exasperate their owners by playing the game of bolting the second they go to take hold of them. When teaching a reliable recall, you can make holding their collar a part of the process. Teach them that when they come to you, you will hold them and give them treats.
A surefire way to blow solid recall training is to verbally ask for them to sit when they get to you. and then rewarding or praising the sit. By doing so, you are completely skipping over the praise for the coming when called and are rewarding the sit. If it is important to you that your dog sits when they get to you, then you should teach the traditional hand signal used for sitting. Use that to ask for a sit while always simultaneously praising them for coming to you when called.
Another surefire way to blow a solid recall is to stop rewarding them for doing it.
There are other ways to mess up a reliable recall. For example, you could only practice it when you absolutely need your puppy or dog to come to you, then put them in their crate or take them inside. Here’s an example of why that is a bad idea. At only 11 weeks old, my puppy is already hip to the fact that when I call her to her kennel, her fun is over. She is becoming reluctant to comply. In response to her hesitance, I am making a special point of training her to come to me when I am near her kennel. Then, I just reward her and hold her briefly before letting her resume her play. Only calling your puppy to you and then being a party pooper by putting them away or leaving the house will be a short-lived experience with a clever puppy. Take the time to train them to come to you “just because.”
Using treats or your dogs’ food to reward them for coming to you is not a bribe. It’s a reward for making the right choice. Instilling in your dogs that there is a reward will pay off in the long run when you really do need them to come when called.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net.
Heidi Clayton started Four On the Floor Dog Training to provide positive, reward-based dog training in South Jersey. She breeds, trains and shows bull terriers under the SoraBully’s Bull Terriers kennel name. Email questions to heidi@fouronthefloordogtraining.net or learn more at https://fouronthefloordogtraining.net
