Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The most common mistake owners make in attempting to teach a recall is they call their dog over and over as the dog ignores them. This is teaching your dog to disregard your voice.
Below is my basic training plan for teaching a recall:
1) Choose a Recall cue. It should have a distinctive ring to it and only be used for serious recalls. The Recall cue is only given ONCE. Your dog must learn to come immediately, not after you’ve called her 17 times! Repeating any cue teaches your dog to ignore you.
2) Inside the house, practice the recall when you are 100% sure your dog will come to you. Reward with 3 treats, given one at a time. Praise liberally! (Rewarding with multiple treats teaches your dog not to "dine and dash".) It is helpful to start praising as soon as your dog starts moving in your direction. Let him know he's on the right track in his attempt to comply.
3) Outside, practice with your dog attached to a long light-weight cord / rope. Try to be 99% sure he is going to come to you before giving the cue. When your dog comes to you, praise and reward with 3 treats given one at a time AND THEN RELEASE HIM to go back about his business. (The light weight cord is to be stepped on if absolutely necessary.)
4) Make a habit of touching your dog’s collar and petting him as you reward with treats. This teaches him to be ready for you to get your hands on him when he comes to you, which may be necessary in an emergency situation.
5) Increase difficulty as your dog becomes more reliable. Try your Recall when your dog is sniffing a good spot in the yard, when he’s distracted by a bird, when he’s interacting with another dog, etc. Resist the urge to repeat your cue if your dog doesn’t come. Instead, use the tip below to follow through with the Recall.
While you are still working on Recall training, there may come a time when you need your dog to come to you and you feel there is a good chance she WON”T because she is distracted. For now, don’t use your Recall cue, but instead make a fun, high pitched noise and run away from the dog. If your dog is being really stubborn, you may have to lay down on your back – few dogs can resist their owners in such a position..!
View things from your dog’s perspective. If every time she is called, she is given a few treats and is then set free again, you’ve set yourself up for a powerful, solid, works-every-time Recall. If, however, she is often called and is then crated, leashed, or brought inside, she may come to view “Come” as the signal that all the fun is ending.
The general rule is: Don’t use your Recall Cue if something unpleasant is to follow. Depending on the dog, that could mean a bath, having nails clipped, being crated, etc.
Consider using a special treat for Recall training, something your dog can’t resist and only gets for Recalls.
Think of something that ALWAYS makes your dog come running. Maybe it's the rattle of his food dish as you fill it with food, maybe it's the sound of the doorbell. These prove that dogs CAN reliably come on cue, we just have to make our Come command as powerful as those other examples by consistently associating a high value reward with the sound of our recall cue.
Here is an example of recall training with distractions:
A few weeks after we brought her home we cut up a bag of small hot dog pieces, went out onto BLM land and took her off leash. Very quickly she learned that if we called her back that she would get a piece of hot dog. Soon after that first time we would do the same thing, but often she started coming back to us of her own accord to get a piece of a hot dog (very small pieces but enough to get her to come back). We're still doing that now, and it still works (both by us calling her back and by her coming back herself). Should I step back and go through the steps listed above even though we've been using positive reinforcement right from the get-go (including ample praise)? We touch her easily and frequently all over her whole body including around her face, neck, collar.
It's just been in the last couple of months that she listens well until that very moment when she doesn't. A couple of times I've seen it coming - she's jumped a fence to chase a deer, and jumped another fence to chase a rabbit out on BLM. But there have been increasing times where she was not chasing, but rather just running.
A whistle has stopped her a couple of times but not other times. I'll keep processing what everyone has written to try to figure out what works for Kory, but I'm not going to call her back 17 times anymore.
Also (ref another post) that this dog is intelligent and athletic. She doesn't have a "job". I wonder if that is part of the issue (my husband is a retired LEO who worked with Malinois years ago), but boredom did not seem to be an issue until the last few months. She gets plenty of exercise (walks and runs).
Very quickly she learned that if we called her back that she would get a piece of hot dog. Soon after that first time we would do the same thing, but often she started coming back to us of her own accord to get a piece of a hot dog (very small pieces but enough to get her to come back). We're still doing that now, and it still works (both by us calling her back and by her coming back herself). Should I step back and go through the steps listed above even though we've been using positive reinforcement right from the get-go (including ample praise)?
I do the same thing when I bring my dogs to the fields to explore off-leash -- I have a bag of treats ready and will give them a coupe treats and of course praise every time they check in with me even when I haven't called them.
The risk you run with calling your dog before she is reliable is that you will give your recall cue and she will ignore it. Every time a dog ignores the recall, it adds to the impression that this cue is not really important. In fact if your dog has ignored your recall in the past you may want to switch to a brand new cue and start fresh with a more careful strategy. I only use my "for real" recall when I am serious about my dogs coming to me and I never repeat it over and over. It has a very distinct ring to it, a unique sound that they only hear when it is time for a serious recall. Other times when I am just casually calling them to me I will say "c'mon" or "come here" but I have a special sound that I make for serious recalls. They are so conditioned to that sound that they will stop what they're doing no matter what and come racing toward me to check in.
Like I said before, think of a noise that always brings your dog running. For many dogs it's the sound of their food dish being filled. I'm not suggesting to use that sound for the recall cue, just pointing out that it is obviously possible to associate a particular sound with such a strong conditioned response that it will make a dog drop whatever they are doing and come running every time.
You have an advantage in space to working with her, I'm on fence with using treats as rewards, usually it's a quick good girl, and a touch her back which she gets super excited. I would buy either a long line, or if it's easier a longe line ( tack store) and work with obedience and tracking, hide food in the field with things you recognize, and let her find her way , when she does, do sit, down, and then come stay, then reward. You have control, with her having freedom, thinking, and listening
My Dazzle is a Silken Windhound which is a sight hound. Sighthounds are born runners and people that adopt grey hounds are told not to allow them off leash in unfenced areas for that reason, that is pretty much true for any sight hound. Dazzle does have a good recall if he is just wandering around so is off leash at the leash free beach and leash free wilderness areas and at the dog park : However if he does take off running all bets are off as he seems to get lost in that moment .He is not running away but rather is just running and moving at about 30 mph can get quite far in the blink of an eye but he does either turn around and race back or stops and waits for me, but to call him when he is running like that is useless as he does not even appear to hear me. Being he is that way I am selective of where I will allow him off leash.
Chaos I got as a small puppy and from day one I would not chase her so she has never learned that game and she does have a great recall and yes it was taught using treats as a reward then slowly phasing them out.Every now and then I will give her a treat for coming but most the time no. She can be playing with her dog buddies and if I call she comes .
Have you ever tried running the other way and calling your dog as you do that rather then you chasing the dog..have the dog chasing you? I caught a stray dog that had people chasing it by doing that. If your dog likes squeaky toys maybe have one on you when you go out there and if the dog starts running start calling it and squeaking the toy while dangling it so the dog can chase you and grab it and play a little tug so it is a game. I know Malinois tend to like to have things in their mouths and know a flyball team that has many of them and when they are coming back over the hurdles towards the owners as they come over that last hurdle the owner waves a tug toy and the dog races right to them and grabs it for a quick tug game.
Dashdog, I can relate to your dog and her love of running and being lost in the moment. Kory seems that way to me sometimes. Sometimes it seems as though she is just in a complete running trance and doesn't even hear me, and then there have been a couple of times when I have called her name, she has stopped, turned to look at me, and then turned back to continue running.
She is so fast. She can cover the distance of a field in a full on sprint in the blink of an eye. The good thing is that she is a sprinter and not a distance runner, so she can cover a lot of distance in a short time and then she's done.
I took her out onto BLM land this afternoon. Tried the laying on the ground idea, and it actually worked. She did come back to see what I was doing. Also tried the "make funny noises" thing. She was sitting off trail chewing on a bone she found so didn't respond right away, but after a couple of shots at it she did come back to see why I was making weird noises.
Lot of good information in this thread to digest. What I'm getting from this thread is that we've gotten some things right and gotten some things wrong. I'll establish a "serious recall cue", stop chasing and retrieving her, read and reread this thread, and keep working at it. I'll post updates. This is the dog we're talking about:
You need to be more interesting than the BLM free-for-all she gets when she bolts. Nosework, flyball, agility, socializing, etc. - these are all things that will engage her more than just running around sniffing at things.
My younger dog is a Catahoula who bolted twice when he was still a puppy and had not yet fully bonded to me. We do a few dog sports, we go to dog parks, we visit people, we've tried herding, barn hunting and lure coursing, etc. I am a major source of novelty for that dog, and his recall is pretty darn good these days. He knows that if I'm calling him there's a good chance we're going to something more exciting or more fun.
You need to be more interesting than the BLM free-for-all she gets when she bolts. Nosework, flyball, agility, socializing, etc. - these are all things that will engage her more than just running around sniffing at things.
My younger dog is a Catahoula who bolted twice when he was still a puppy and had not yet fully bonded to me. We do a few dog sports, we go to dog parks, we visit people, we've tried herding, barn hunting and lure coursing, etc. I am a major source of novelty for that dog, and his recall is pretty darn good these days. He knows that if I'm calling him there's a good chance we're going to something more exciting or more fun.
Very important concept - be worth the recall. Figure out everything your dog considers truly rewarding and use those things to reinforce the recall. Not just food rewards, make it a party! The OP's dog looks as if she'd probably enjoy a flirt pole and other types of toys that can mimic prey. Incorporate that into the reward for coming to the owner. I agree - be more interesting than whatever the dog is doing. And always let the dog determine the reward because in order to be effective it needs to be about what they love, not what we think they should love.
Very important concept - be worth the recall. Figure out everything your dog considers truly rewarding and use those things to reinforce the recall. Not just food rewards, make it a party! The OP's dog looks as if she'd probably enjoy a flirt pole and other types of toys that can mimic prey. Incorporate that into the reward for coming to the owner. I agree - be more interesting than whatever the dog is doing. And always let the dog determine the reward because in order to be effective it needs to be about what they love, not what we think they should love.
That is why something like a tug toy reward might work well as it is a fun game most dogs love and NO it does not make dogs aggressive or think they are in control like some seem to think it does. Many of the sports dogs ie Flyball, Agility etc love tug as a a reward and many people have leashes that the dog can use as a tug toy. So in agility so the dog knows the leash is laying there at the end of the run and when it goes over that last hurdle and is given the release word it runs to get the leash on the ground and bring it to it's owner for a quick game of tug. For My Jazz a toss of her ball was the best reward in the world. Rewards can be fun instead of food as dogs do love to play with people.
As Jrz mentioned the different dogs sports even done just for funhelp too as they teach a dog to focus on you and work as a team with you. Having done agility I know how much it improved the relationship with the dogs and had them focused on me.
Just wanted to follow up on this thread to let you know that things are going really well with Kory. I took the advice about it becoming a game to heart (ie calling and calling her name and then chasing after her to retrieve her). I hit on the answer purely by accident - at one point she started to bolt and before she got very far I yelled HEY!! in a very loud and stern voice. An "I mean it" voice. It stopped Kory dead in her tracks. I tried it again and it worked again. If she was close it would startle her and she would turn back to me. If she was a little further out it would break whatever running trance she was in, and she would return to me. Lots of praise at the returns. It worked the first time I accidentally stumbled on it, and it continues to work now.
Once summer hit Kory actually weaned herself off the hot dog treats we had been using when she was off leash, so now it's strictly praise.
The HEY!! thing also works when she is in the yard and wants to wander out of the yard. I have actually seen her break off chasing a bunny in the yard and return.
I still think part of the problem was boredom at running on BLM land close to the house so much. Land which is flat and without much of interest for exploring dogs. We still wander close to town, but also spend more time wandering on rocky buttes and lave fields further out on BLM land, which she loves.
It's not 100% fool proof, but something seems to have clicked in my dogs' head over the past couple of months and its all becoming more and more dependable. Thank you to everyone for their advice and suggestions. We'll keep working on it, but wanted to let you know that things are going well.
Glad to hear she is doing better.By the way she is a beautiful dog
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. Many of the sports dogs ie Flyball, Agility etc love tug as a a reward and many people have leashes that the dog can use as a tug toy. So in agility so the dog knows the leash is laying there at the end of the run and when it goes over that last hurdle and is given the release word it runs to get the leash on the ground and bring it to it's owner for a quick game of tug. For My Jazz a toss of her ball was the best reward in the world. Rewards can be fun instead of food as dogs do love to play with people.
