Dog Training Tips: Recall Games – Ditch the Dog & Recall into Finish Position | Dog Behavior & Training
With Jen Larson, KPA-CTP and Whitney Spence, CPDT-KA
Concept by Courtney Emken
We're resuming our series of recall games with Ditch the Dog & Recall in target position. Did you know working on your dog's recall could save their life? That's right, if you play with your dog now it could one day save your life. Learn these games and play with your dog.
Transcript:
- - [Whitney] Hello, my name is Whitney. I'm one of the certified trainers here and I'm here with Jen, our training manager. Today we're back with a few more recall games. Drop the dog and call him back to the target position. We're going to need the help of Leo the Pug today too.
- - [Jen] Well, before we start our two recall games today, just a few reminders to keep in mind. The recall therefore comes when it is called consistently. Therefore, it is important to practice recall in low distraction environments and really build skills before using it in higher distraction environments such as outdoors or in a park. A couple of factors that will affect the success of your recall. Your posture. So what do you do with your body when you call your dog over to you? If you lean forward or approach and move toward them, some of these dog postures can be seen as intimidating and the dog is less likely to want to come to you. Instead, you can adopt less intimidating positions. So turn on your side, crouch, walk away, mend your legs, stuff like that, and that will make your dog more likely to come over to you. Another really important thing to keep in mind when recalling is that recall is an essential skill. It may really save your dog's life one day. In case they ran out the front door or in front of a car, something like that. A powerful recall can bring them back to you and protect them.
- - [Whitney] So, for digging the dog, what you are going to do is use your daily callback cue and for Leo it is going to come, and so I'll say come and then take a few steps away from him. As soon as he comes to me, I'll reward you with some goodies.
- - [Jen] This will get your dog used to following you and coming with you when you move, that sort of thing.
- - [Whitney] So I'll go ahead and start getting rid of the dog with his everyday recall cue. Leo, come on, yes, good boy. Well done. Come on, good boy Leo. Is a nibble. Come on, good job. And so it could be a really fun game for you and your dog. So Ditch the Dog is a fun game to play in the back yard, in your house, or in any setting.
- - [Jen] Make sure it's a low distraction environment, however, and then work your way up to more distraction environments. The second game we're going to play is called Callback to Target Position. So it's about training a nice target position at the end of Leo's recall. So we don't want Leo to run up to us and then jump on us or something, we want nice behavior like sitting, so we're going to ask Leo for it today. So I'm going to be using the same game Whitney just used, but I'm going to add one more element and this will be recalled to the target position. So instead of Leo just running to me, when he comes to me I will ask for a nice finishing touch so he can sit in his case. So we use this on dogs who are very excited at times so that they are excited to come over to you, come to you, and jump on you. Instead of reinforcing jumping behavior or the like, we would like to build a nice standard seat. Okay, Leo's callback to the target position will be a seat, so I'll make sure he has a seat. Sit down fine So it has a nice little seat so I'm going to use it. So I'll run away from him and call him to me with his everyday phone call. He's visiting Whitney over there. I call him back to me and then ...
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