RECALL EXERCISES
Challenge One: No Food or Toy Reward Recall
Place your dog in a stay in another room where they cannot see you (can be just around a corner, and you can have a helper hold them if they can’t stay like this yet). Go sit down in another room, you cannot have any food or toys on you. Call your dog, without moving from where you are sitting see if you are able to pet them in a way they enjoy. NO grabbing their collar or restraining them in any way, the touch has to be voluntary. Try to see how long you can get them to want to stay with you without being restrained or rewarded with food or toys.
HERE ARE A FEW TIPS IF YOU STRUGGLE WITH THIS:
If your dog is not used to coming in without getting a reward at first they might reflexively pull away when you reach to pet them, so don’t reach out for them until they have come all the way in.
Keep your hands low at first, one so they see there is no food and most dogs do not really love hands coming right at their faces as they approach you.
Most dogs do better if you start with one hand petting rather than going for a two handed grab which looks too much like control.
If they stop short use your smiles and voice to try and talk them the rest of the way in.
Match your energy to what they need, if they get jumpy and too physical with a lot of energy keep your voice calm and quiet. If they are still young mouthy puppies they might get too excited by too much fast hand movements so keep your hands calm. If your dog is mellow and not excited to come see you, give more energy and animation.
The goal here is that your dog is happy to come see you and hang out even if you don’t offer them anything other than yourself for it. That can look like many different things and it doesn’t have to be cuddles and snuggles like dogs give me. It can be them standing there wagging their tales happy to chat with you. Some dogs love celebrating with you more than being touched, especially if they have not really been a naturally physically cuddly dog.
HERE IS YOUR NEXT RECALL CHALLENGE!
So this one is silly! But all of these games help me identify levels of a dog’s understanding and what types of body language or lures they might be dependent on, which is fine if we know what they are we can work on making their understanding even better. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to train without having lures and body language cues seep into a dependency and with commands we want super solid we want our dogs to be able to know the word alone and what it means. The issue is that sometimes we don’t know our dog is dependent on a body language cue or lure and when we fail to give it we are surprised and think our dog is blowing us off, when it’s really we forgot the piece of information they most need.
If your dog has a stay you can do this one by yourself and it’s kind of fun to test their stay and your trust level with it. If they make a mistake and come to you before you call, don’t get upset or scold them, just don’t give them the cookie and try again. If they make a mistake the next time it means they are not ready for this test yet and you need to have someone hold them.
Also remember with all of these games, it’s not bad if they don’t understand it. I am going to be really pushing your training and understanding into new areas and you both might feel confused at times. That’s ok, just have fun, keep praising and being nice to your dog and just give it a go. If it doesn’t work I will be showing you all the tools to get the success but first we need to find any foundation holes we might have.
BLINDFOLDED COME COMMAND CHALLENGE
The hardest part of this one is keeping your hands still as you call, if you move them that might cue your dog more than your command, so fight to keep them still as you call. Once you feel your dog there with you, then you can move your hands to them. You can use food to reward them once they are there. Extra credit if you remember to work on getting some affection in there as well as the reward!
Place your dog in a stay
Walk to a chair and put on your blindfold
Sit down (listen to hear if they are moving or not if you can rather than just immediately call, incase your sitting makes them move)
Keep your hands in the same spot until your dogs get to you
You can reward once you feel your dog is there
Ok this one is a real challenge
So this one is truly a test if you do it outside as dog’s know we have a whole different level of control outside, but you can do it inside if you don’t feel ready yet to take it on outside, or if you don’t have a safe space or someone to help you. You can do it using a long line for safety, just don’t use the line to help them come, only to keep them from running away.
ONE HANDED LEASH UP AFTER A RECALL.
Sit down in a chair 15-20ft away from your dog.
You can have your dog stay, or have someone hold them for you.
Place on hand behind your back and a leash in the other..
Call your dog.
Without removing your hand from behind your back get the leash clipped onto your dog’s collar or harness.
You can use treats or toys if you would like to.
The more hair your dog has the more challenging this is ;)
Remember this is a game so no getting mad at your dog if you can’t do it.
Ok your next recall challenge is here!
This is a fun way to start bringing outside challenges to your dog’s recall. Now to be fair we can’t expect success unless you have done enough other recall practice so your dog understands what they should be doing when you call, this is a proofing exercise more than a teaching exercise. But feel free to give it a go with the rule that you can’t correct or be upset if your dog chooses a toy over the recall. If they grab a toy just don’t play with them.
Here my set up is a row of upside down plastic party cups I snagged before they hit the trash can at a gathering, but you can use anything so don’t go out and buy stuff, even if you just put the toys on the ground you can do that. The cups just bring the toys up higher into view and make it a little more challenging. I’ve also used upside down plant holders, plastic cups, traffic cones, upside down bowls. You can adjust the width of your chute depending on your dog’s come command experience level and their toy drive, so you can make it wider if you think it will be very hard for your pup. If your dog does not like toys you can also use food treats.
Today is for our puppies or new to you dogs.
OR EVEN DOGS WHO JUST NEED MORE RECALL FOUNDATION.
Work in a low distraction environment like inside your home.
Grab some kibble or treats.
Show your puppy your food and give it a toss, with young puppies you have to make your toss very obvious and close as young pups don’t always track well and will not see it if you throw too fast.
Wait until the moment you see your pup has eaten the treat and then call.
When they come back to you hoping for more food, get their focus on a treat and help them to sit, give them a pet as you give the food.
Be careful of your timing of petting as you want them seeing the food as you reach to pet as this helps prevent a reflexive dodge of the petting hand.
After your pets and treat, show them another piece of food and give it a toss.
Repeat a half a dozen times or so.
Match your energy to your pup, if you have a super excitable pup that jumps and nips when they get super excited, keep yourself calm. If you have a gentle pup you can be more animated. We don’t need jumping out of your skin excitement, just happy.
Bringing your dogs in close
with Clear Recall signals
So this is going to be the last recall video for this week, and then we will shift to some other fun for the rest of the week. I want you guys to keep working on any of the games that had weak areas for you, and keep working on bringing that touch into your reward process. Here we are going to look at how to use those treats to create some real solid habits that make it easier for you to touch them without those big leans and reaches that repel so many of the dogs. We will come back to working on recall exercises regularly since it was the list topper of what people wanted, but I also want to move onto some fun games and leash walking. This video is really important for those of you who saw a big difference in your ability to touch your dogs or get them closer when you were sitting on the floor vs a chair or standing.
Watch the video and I want you to practice both sitting in a chair and standing, practice it at least 3-5 times in a row. Work on this until your dog happily and easily comes all the way in. Focus on your drawing pointing hand and do not reach to pet your dog until your dog is in position and pet AS you reward. If your dog loves affection you can continue after the eat the treat if they are leaning into you, but if your dog is touch sensitive don’t be in a rush to touch a lot, just give a sweet touch as you feed the treat and then stop. We want to change how they feel about coming in for touch, so if they think you are tricking them and then you push the affection past their comfort point they won’t trust it next time. Part of building engagement and brining touch into our reward process is listening and letting the dog show us when they are ready for the next level with the affection. They will show you, if you stop petting and your pup nudges your hand or they lean in, they want more, if they stay still or pull away they are done. It’s ok to listen to that. Engaging touch with a dog that doesn’t come to the table with it, is a long slow game, it’s something you build with time and trust.
Recall off distractions
Ok, so all that call through the chute of distraction is going to start taking us towards having a great recall! You should know after doing that game which toys or foods were the most challenging for your dog, and that’s the stuff we want to use to get our dogs able to turn away from what they want and come to us no matter what.
Before doing this exercise you need to have worked on the recalls using the clear signals so your dog understands that point. You also want to have worked on the call through the chute so you can see if your dog is ready for the distractions to be moving. You can’t expect them to come off a moving toy if they can’t run past one that is still.
Place your dog on a sit stay, walk away and face them, take a low level toy and toss it to one side before you call. This might cause some stay issues to pop up, so if so just work on that before you worry about a call. Once your dog is successful with their stay, go ahead and give them a call. As you call, point and back up drawing them to you. If they veer off for the toy don’t give up, stop backing up and slowly walk to them and stick your reward as close to their nose as you can get it and then start backing up. Don’t “ahh ahh” or “no” if they head for the toy, just keep working your recall and when they let go of the toy even if you had to help them, be happy and reward them. We want this game to be fun, not stressful so keep the “no” out of it and just let your lack of play and rewards be what shows them what the game is.
If you are playing this game with food, put the food in a container so they can’t eat the food without your help if they do make a mistake.
Once your dog is successful with the low level toy move to a more challenging toy, then add in a second toy.
Long Line Work for Recalls
If you don’t have someone who can help you train recalls a long line is an essential tool for working on recalls! One thing I really want you to understand when using a long line is that it’s function is that of a safety net, not a fishing reel. You use it to keep a dog safe and to keep them from leaving, not to use it to pull your dog into you. If you use it that way, then when you take it off you won’t have a recall as the dog will be reliant on being pulled in. But if the dog is coming to you on it’s own and the line is just there to keep the dog safe it will be easier to wean away from.
If you have never used a long line it will feel awkward at first as you sort out how to hold it and not get tangled up. I would suggest you wear gloves at first so if the dog does run and you use it, gloves will protect your hands. There is an art to a soft subtle breaking you do with your hands that keeps your hands safe and puts little pressure on the dog if you do need to stop them. What you do is let the lead slide through your hand and then give soft frequent little squeezes on the line which is like pumping your brakes in a car. You can see when I work I basically let the long line drag on the ground and I hold it so it can slide through my hand, then if I need to apply pressure I close my hand so it stops feeding out line. You can tie a couple knots that let you know when the line is nearing the end so as that first knot passes through your hand you know to start soft braking.
It is inevitable that using a long line for recall work that you will likely have to put some physical pressure on your dog, please do so very gently, using that soft braking rather than letting them hit the end at a run. If you have a powerful dog that is easily distracted it would be safer for your dog to use a harness with the long line rather than a neck collar. You will see I use a collar, but I have so much experience with long line handling so the dogs feel very little pressure.
You are really trying hard in this training to use your motion, your energy & engagement and your quick early action to prevent the need of any physical control. If you need a lot of leash pressure I suggest you go back and work more on the engagement class exercises! To have a great recall you need for it to be based on a desire to connect and engage with you rather than based on control.
I generally use either 20 or 30ft long lines. Choose the weight of line based on the dog’s body weight. Lightweight lines are harder on your hands if you have a large dog and will cause rope burn easier. Heavy lines will anchor down your little dogs, especially if they get wet. I choose a line by now it treats my hands, not how strong or pretty it looks, I want it to be gentle on my hands so I can handle it with gentleness like I would reins on a horse. So cotton blends and leather are my choice over biothane and nylon which can be harder to grip when it’s flying through your hands. By choose what feels the most comfortable to you. Also flat is easier to grip and break with than round rope. If you use round rope like paracord do yourself a favor and tie a lot of knots in it so you have something to grip.