Dog Training Tips: Recall Games - Toss the treat & Back and Forth | Dog Behavior & Training

With Jen Larson, KPA-CTP and Whitney Spence, CPDT-KA
Concept by Courtney Emken

Did you know working on your dog's recall could save their life? Callback comes when called regularly and we have a new line of Callback games that we will be rolling out over the next few weeks so you can effectively improve your dog's callback skills and have fun! This first episode starts with a few basic games that your dog can play almost anywhere. Leave us a comment on how your dog learned these new games.

- Hi, my name is Jen, I am the training department manager and this is Whitney, one of our certified trainers, and we are here today to show you some fun recall games. Before we get into our recall game, there are just a few things to keep in mind when recalling. So the callback comes when it is called consistently. So there are a few factors that can affect the success of a recall. So when you exercise with callback, there are a few things you want to keep in mind. So first of all your posture. So what are you doing with your body Do you lean forward? Approach the dog? Reach for them? All of these things can be considered intimidating for dogs. Instead, you turn to the side, crouch, move away from the dog, the dog is more comfortable when he comes to you. A few other factors influencing your success are solid. So what types of sound are you using? If you use a high pitched staccato sound or an excited sound, the more likely a dog will come to you. Tone is important too, so I know that sometimes when a dog doesn't come we can get a little frustrated and possibly sound a little harsher and more intimidating and that makes a dog less likely to want to come to you. So when you're feeling frustrated, go in the opposite direction, you get happier, more excited, more squeaky, all of these things. So if you are practicing recall, that recall is an essential skill. It is really important to practice this whenever you can. Calling back literally one day could save your dog's life.

- So the games we're going to work on will be Toss the Treats and some Back and Forth, and we'll be using our everyday recall cue that is about to come. So our great little work partner today is going to be Leo the pug, he's great, such a hard worker. The first game we're going to play is Toss the Treat. This is great the first time we get our dogs used to remembering, so going straight back to us and rewarding and reinforcing any eye contact. So, to get started, I'm going to toss the tidbit. As soon as he gets to it and turns around and looks ... Yes, good boy! I will mark the reward as soon as he gets back to me. So again. Leo, yes, good boy. I will only reinforce it when it comes back to me for this moment. So I'll toss the goodies when he turns around and looks ... yeah good boy! Tag and reward. Have a treat. Yes! And reward. So now I'm going to go ahead and add his everyday recall that is to come. So I'm going to toss the treat. Come! Yes. Tag and reward as soon as he comes back to you. Come! Yeah good boy And again. Come! Yes, good job, good boy.

- The next game we're going to play is called Back and Forth. So it's very simple and you can play it at home with a partner. Me and Whitney are going to start just a foot or two apart, we're going to call Leo back and forth between us using his recall cue that came up, then we're slowly going to go further and further apart. So when he comes to one of us, we will mark him and reinforce him because he came to us, and we will see if we can let him run back and forth between us. Okay, so let's start just a few feet apart first. Leo, come on. Yeah good boy

- Leo, come on. Yes.

- And so it is important ...