Ultimate Recalls

Exercise one

In order to have a perfect recall the very first thing you need is that your dog is always ready to hear you! The biggest issue with recalls is often breaking through a dog’s focus on something other than you, whether it’s a smell, something they see or hear. We want to condition our dogs to always be listening for our voices. So exercise one is to condition both our dog’s names outside just like we would condition a clicker. Your dog’s name should whip their eyes to you in the same way a click does, if it doesn’t that means you likely use their name more for control than you do for connection. If their heads don’t turn for you with a click or their name than the issue is motivation and reward level. You need a strong enough reinforcer to matter more than the environment.

Watch the video below for examples of conditioning my dog’s name using both food and toys. You want to use whatever gets your dog’s head swinging the fastest. Be sure you are using a well conditioned marker word to mark that moment the dog’s head turns towards you! You can do this exercise both on and off of a leash. You want to try and surprise your dog so don’t go fishing in your pocket for treats BEFORE you call of the sound of the bag will be what they condition to, not your call. The goal is the head swing, not the speed of the return at this stage, so use your marker word and praise to mark the head turn. If your dog is close enough you can even toss the treat to them when the head turns. As you can see with Nick toys create a much faster turn and it’s much easier to reward at the moment they turn since you can throw them the turn.

Start these exercises when it’s easy! Don’t wait until they are distracted or doing something. This should feel like the easiest and funnest thing ever for both you and your dog. Don’t over do this on your walks or outings, you want it to stay fresh and fun. So on one regular walk I might do 5-8 head swing calls. It needs to feel special and fun, not naggy and constant.

Exercise two

The second exercise is going to be a repeat of exercise one, except conditioning your recall cue. Do not pair the recall cue with the name, condition it on it’s own so that you then end up with TWO strongly conditioned cues to draw your dog in. Be SURE when practicing this, to set it up for success! Work with your dog very close to you, when they are looking at you, when they are not distracted, do not test it to see if your dog will respond, we want our dogs wanting to respond so set your stage for success, high value treats/toys, low distraction, eager connected dog.

Exercise 3

Now that we have an instant head turn we want to work on getting a super fast return to us, we want a dog racing back not ambling back. So let’s create some fun motivation to return. First I will show you how to do that using a toy. I will also be sharing ways to use food, and your own energy to create fast returns.

Now, once your dog swings their head back to look at you when you say their name, turn 180 degrees facing the opposite direction of your dog and throw the toy so the dog has to race past you to go get the throw toy. Don’t worry about anything other than the speed they are racing back, we will work on the stopping at you as a separate piece once you get the speed. You can see how we will be doing that, but don’t rush that step.

We want to think about the recall in separate pieces, the head turn, the return, the stop, the stay engaged. We need to work each one of these pieces to their best performance so we have a solid performance in each piece to create the solid foundation.

Exercise 4

Now let’s look at how to use food to speed up a dog’s return on a recall. When using food you don’t often get the same speed or intensity that you do when using play which sets up some nice chase drive speed. However the truth is many dogs are far more motivated by food than they are toys, especially when out in the world. But HOW we use food and what we reward matters so we need to be conscious of what exactly we are reinforcing! If your dog slowly ambles back to you and you give them a treat, what is the motivation to run faster if they know they will still get the treat? But if you withhold the treat because it wasn’t quick enough you run the risk of them choosing not to come back at all the next time. So what do you do? The answer is you make the food more fun, and you use your motion to create more speed. Don’t just stand there like a statue waiting patiently until they happen back. Use marker cues and then emotion to encourage, motion to speed up, and food to reinforce. If you always just stand still and feed unless you have a super food driven dog, you will likely end up with a methodical response.

Even if your dog plays with toys, play these games too! And even if your dog prefers food, if they will chase toys do those exercises too. Novelty, change and spontaneous reinforcers make your dog more engaged and interested.

Also, notice this entire exercise is done on leash, right by me! You can strengthen recalls so much by creating such strong positive association of hearing “come” and racing towards you! This doesn't have to start with them being off leash 30yards away racing after a squirrel. Build what we want! Come = race to me for fun times.

So,

  • Dog on leash walking with you.

  • Say “come” and then step back. (check your training area for safety so you don’t trip doing so and wear appropriate shoes)

  • As soon as they are coming towards you toss a treat past you (make sure they see it, keep your hand low and it’s a gentle toss close enough they don’t hit the end of the leash chasing it) for them to go get.

  • You can also toss a few extra treats to get them looking away and then again call “come” after they eat the treat and back up, tossing the treat past you as they turn.

  • Try to include 3-5 of these during your walks!

  • Remember to use the clear COME cue, before you step back.

  • Keep the food moving during the reinforcement, again we are trying to reinforce speed, so if you are hand feeding once the dog stops and sits you are actually reinforcing the stop of motion. So we need to reward while the dog is moving.

  • Once your dog is happily racing back full speed, sneak in a sit in front of you before the treat toss, keep it short and fast so it stays upbeat and fun. Notice I’m not commanding sit, I just lift the treat up as the dog is coming in so they sit as their gaze follows it up, then I toss as soon as they hit the sit. Don’t rush to get the sit! The fast return needs to be happening before you add that step or you will kill all chances at a fast return.

  • If at any point your dog slows, you speed up! Be fun, animated and make a right fool of yourself teaching this and you will have a zippy recall.

Exercise 5

Building the clear consistent recall pattern. So much of great dog training is about clean consistent communication. Much of the time people are confusing and presume dog’s can figure it out, and because they are such good problem solvers they get close enough that people can assume they really do understand what the expectation is, and then get frustrated and upset when the dog “misbehaves” when in reality the dog likely just does not understand and the presence of competing distractions wins their attention. So we want to be super clear and consistent in showing a dog that “come” means run right to me, right now! So let’s set that pattern and then provide consistent reinforcement to shore it up for our dogs understanding.

This is essentially like the previous exercise with the focus being clear cues and clear action to make it happen without giving the dog a chance to be wrong. And we are going to focus on holding the dog’s focus and engagement when they reach us. So the steps are going to stay exactly the same:

  • walk with your dog on a leash

  • have treats (in your pocket or in a pouch- not in your hand)

  • while walking (ideally when the dog is not looking at you) say clearly “(dog’s name) Come!”

  • step back as safely and quickly as your body and surroundings allow and move backwards

  • keep moving back praising your dog until they catch you

  • once they get to you, praise, pet and reach for your treat, pet before and after the treat

  • before you lose their focus start walking forward again (try to be the one to end the engagement and return to walking before they do

  • BRING IT! Your energy and movement sets this game

Exercise 6

Restrained Recalls! This one exercise is one of the most powerful ways you can build up a recall. You have to have a helper, but it’s super quick, and the whole exercise takes at most 3-5 minutes. So bribe a family member with a cup of coffee or beer and see if they will help you for a few minutes. Their job is very easy.

This is one of the foundation games I come back to a lot, as it’s so much fun for the dogs and makes flying fast to you easy and fun.

  • Have your holder hold your dog by their collar or harness.

  • Show your dog something, either a toy or treat.

  • Race away! The faster you move away the more intrigued your dog will be.

  • Make your leaving fun and interesting, you can stop and fake them out, then run away some more.

  • Then when you see your dog is looking at you and engaged, call a nice clear Name and “come”.

  • Your holder lets go as soon as they hear you say “come”.

  • Praise and stay engaged as your dog is coming to you, rewarding as soon as they reach you.

  • Use fun toys! Use your leash as a toy, you can use your leash and tie a toy to it making a flirt pole type toy.

  • Use high value food.

  • Keep increasing your distance as your dog gets better and better.

  • Only do 3-4 calls at one time in a training session, do not over do this drill.

  • If your dog is not coming to you as quickly as their legs carry them, play with how you are leaving them, play with moving as they are approaching you.

Exercise 7

Ok this one is more for you than your dogs. This is about making sure you are comfortable using a long line so you can work on some more challenging recalls in a safe productive way.

First let's talk about what leads to choose. This is all about personal preference and what feels best in your hands. When I pick any lead my first criteria is how it fits in my hands, it needs to be a width that easily fits in my hand that I can grip which means for my smaller hands the very widest a flat lead can be is 3/4inch, I cannot fully close my hand around a 1 inch wide leash. So most of the leads I use are 1/2 or 3/4 inch wide leads. I never ever use round rope style leads, because I cannot properly grip them and they cause rope burn much easier. People love biothane leads and they definitely have a lot of pros and I would not say don’t use them, but I don’t like the grip in my hands with them so I use cotton even though it performs terribly in wet conditions. If we lived somewhere wetter, like say Vancouver Island where the air just is water I might change my mind. But the point is most important of all is what feels best in YOUR hands. I want you to think of your long line as a training tool you use for this specific training, it is ok to have a different long line you use for decompression walks or safety during hiking. Your recall long line should be fairly light, the heavier it is, the more noticeable it is to the dog they are wearing it. But too small and light of a line it will hurt your hands more if you need to use it to stop your dog. So unless you have a very small dog I would not be using something like paracord.

Length: I find either 20 or 30 feet to be the best recall training length. Too long and it’s always getting tangled up and it’s heavy and noticeable to the dog. Any shorter and why bother ;) Again this is not a decompression walking leash where you want to give them endless distance. This is a training tool that allows you to give fast responses to help your training be successful.

The video shows some basic handling, how to get your dog and line untangled, how and where to hold the line. So exercise one is simply to head out and practice the same ‘come front’ exercises (exercise 5) using your longer line. Work on your line handling to get used to just not tangling you and your dog up 😂. Once you get a feel for that we will talk a lot more about gentle breaking and soft line handling.

Exercise 8

Ok, this is the last of the basic foundation drills before we get into the truly challenging stuff. As you notice, there are a lot of foundation skills to a recall! And truly if you spend a lot of time just on building these skills you will greatly improve your dog’s recall skills.

This drill helps to combat this scenario:

“My dog will only come if they know I have a treat”.

If your dog knows you have a treat, you need to hone your technique so that your rewards are not always upfront promised lures but rather are surprising fun engaging exchanges. One of the early things I do is work on making it hard for my dogs to see if I’m packing. I’ve talked about it on Instagram, how I don’t wear a bait bag. I don’t take issue with anyone who does, there is certainly nothing wrong with using one and always using treats. But also there is nothing wrong with using less obvious reward systems. And some of us like to do things like go trail running and to be able to go out to work in the garden without always needing to bring a treat pouch, so it’s also nice to take your training past always needing immediate pay outs. So we are going to look at some ways to make yourself more discreet about your treat delivery.

This exercise also helps create a hand touch which can become a very nice clear way to visually signal a recall.

It’s simple:

  • Stick a treat between your fingers.

  • Present your hand, palm open to your dog while saying your recall cue.

  • Let your dog hunt the treat out of your fingers, unless they are super rough on your hands, if they are rough you can just drop the treat once they make contact with your hand. But letting them sniff it out and finding it creates a little mini nose work snuffle game for them.

  • Repeat, moving your hand so your dog needs to chase the hand to make contact with it.

Exercise 9

Calling off distractions. Let’s introduce some challenges to our dog’s recall, but let’s do it in a way we can control and create immediate success.

  • have your dog on leash

  • have the leash holding gentle consistent pressure, no slack in the leash, but not so much pressure your are moving the dog

  • take some big visible food pieces, let your dog see as you toss them just out of reach

  • hold the gentle lead pressure so if the dog lunges after the food they don’t get yanked by the leash, they just meet the pressure and can’t reach the food

  • AS you toss the food call your dog and back up

  • when the dog reaches you (they should only be a step or two from you when you called so they should reach you quickly) feed them a treat of the same kind you threw

  • after your dog gets the treat from your hands say “ok let’s get it” and run to the food your threw and let them have that too

  • do no more than three repetitions at one session

  • when your dog is no longer trying to move for the thrown food until you cue “let’s get it” loosen that leash back up so you are no longer giving any leash pressure before moving forward to making this any more difficult

Exercise 10

Calling off thrown toys. Ok, now we get into the fun stuff and they more helpful stuff to address handling distractions. When most dogs are running after something off leash, they are often exhibiting prey drive. Chasing toys is the closest we can mimic putting a dog into chasing prey mode. So if you can control a dog that is chasing a toy, you can go a lot further in teaching them to call off chasing something real. If you cannot call your dog off of chasing a thrown toy, how would you ever expect them to be able to call off of a squirrel?

This exercise is very much like the previous exercise, except we are throwing a toy instead of food.

  • Again, begin with that slight leash tension so if your dog lunges for the toy they are not getting yanked or jerked by the leash, but meeting gentle stopping leash pressure.

  • Toss your toy just a little ways, just out of your dog’s reach, using the leash pressure to help them not race for it.

  • Call their name and when they look at you, throw an identical toy for them behind you so they need to run past you to get it.

  • Do NOT pull them back to you or away from the toy, the leash is just to keep them from grabbing the toy, not to make them come.

  • You can use backwards movement to help them come towards you and the second toy more quickly, but not until they have decided to turn to you.

  • Mix in letting them just race to the thrown toy, if you call off more than you let them get it you can end up with them just auto recalling without waiting for your call, and then that’s not a practical recall at all.

  • When they are starting to get the idea start to slacken the lead a little so there is no tension, but you are also not jerking them if they do try and go for it, be ready to use your arms to help soften the leash tension if they do go.

  • Start to let them take a few steps towards the thrown toy before calling rather than calling right away.

  • Once they are doing well transition to a long line so you can gradually add more distance.

  • Practice this game with many different toys in many different locations.

Exercise 11

To teach a really great call off of distractions having your dog understand the concept of a delayed reward is crucial. If they get it that the recall is ultimately just a step in the reward process and not a roadblock to their reinforcement they are far more likely to recall when they are faced with recalling away from something reinforcing.

  • start with your dog on a long line

  • hold long line a short distance from collar with light gentle pressure as in previous exercises so if dog moves for reward they are stopped without a jerk or snap of the line

  • toss or drop a toy or bag of as you are walking and say dog’s name

  • use line to prevent the dog from reaching the reward

  • when dog reaches you either toss another toy or feed a treat

  • then after rewarding the recall, race back to the initially throw reinforcement

  • as dog starts to understand the exercise and is no longer bolting and is coming back when they hear their name without any leash pressure, start saying “come” after their name

  • when dog is coming back after you call without any leash pressure, drop the lead and don’t use any physical pressure to stop the dog, start with just their name so if they do race for the toy and get it, they have not ignored a “come” command

  • if they do get the toy, do NOT scold or reprimand, just don’t play with them or act happy about it, when tossing food make sure the food is in a bag so they can’t easily self reward by eating the thrown food

  • add the “come” after their name again once they are stopping with their name and returning to you

  • always race back to the thrown toy or food after giving the reinforcement for coming to you, even if they have forgotten about it, make it fun to race back with you (you can see me do this in the video with the food, you can see how much more a challenge the toys are then food for Nick, the food I have to run with him to the thrown food, but he sends to the toys easily)

  • watch the long line handling in the video, you can see how I move from gentle leash pressure to prevent a mistake, to slight slack so he doesn’t feel me, to a dropped line. You can see my open grips to let him chase the toy, you can see the way I let the line drag while holding the line closer to him and transition immediately to a loose open grip to race back to the toy.