Emily & I have been spending a lot of time this season preparing for our thru hike next year by hiking and hanging out with thru hikers on the PCT this year, and one of the questions people always have when they find out I am a dog trainer is: Can you teach a dog to come when they are called even around wildlife? The answer is yes, and it depends. Below is a video of a demonstration of the training I have done with all of my dogs so that I can have dogs I can hike with even where wildlife abounds. I have successfully trained all of my dogs to perfect come command status, except one, and with him timing is everything, if I catch it and call right at the start he will come, if he is too far into the chase, nope. 

The secret of success is toys. Using toys you can put a dog into prey drive and chase mode, and the use the toys to shape and reward the desired response. You will never get as good of a come command off of a chase using food, you can get a decent response, but if they are in full chase many dogs will not even consider a treat as a profitable trade. Food drive & prey drive are two separate motivations so one does not always interrupt the other. 

You can see an example of the early steps of the training that I do with her on a leash, using two toys, the toy I am calling her off is always a lesser value toy than the one I present as the reward for responding in the early steps. That way she is built up believing I have the better toy if she listens and that creates a better immediate response. 

As my training progresses I build to using the thrown toy as the reward, and building what commands I can get a response to before releasing to the toy. And as you can see in the video for it to be a practical exercise for real life I need to constantly vary whether I call, or send without a call, call back or just release the mid run wait. If I am too predictable my dog will not actually listen to my words they will just start running the pattern and it won't be under my control. 

Emily is under voice control and it has been field tested with wildlife of all sorts: deer, rabbits, squirrels, grouse, etc. If you like the video subscribe to The Hiker Pup Youtube channel, I will be posting more videos breaking down the training process for this come command training as well as stays, and other trail helpful training.