Recall Basics

[mrs tornsocks]

Our lab pup is just about ready to go out to the big wide world (last vaccs this week). I really want to get him out and about to some dog parks and off leash areas, plus introduce him to the water.

Obviously I'd like to have his recall continue to improve, is there any basic info/tips etc., people can share to help me train him for this ? He goes to kindy once a week so there's alot of distractions there, which is good training ... and he'll almost always come for food but I'd like to step up his recall ability.

Is there anything I can do just in the backyard on our own ? He will always come then, it's when there are other dogs or interesting things around that I'm not so sure about. He's a quick learner.

[Erny]

Don't recall unless you know your pup is likely to come. Otherwise you teach your pup that him being called to come doesn't mean he has to if he doesn't want to.

Reward every recall well (not from your perspective, but from your pup's perspective).

Train in drive .

Set your pup up to win, not to fail.

Be exciting/valuable from your pup's perspective.

Be consistent.

Don't practice recall to the point of boredom. Short training stints.

When your pup recalls, reward and release him to go back to what he was doing (if that's suitable). IOW, don't always finish the fun on a recall.

Be careful about taking your pup to off lead parks (or if he's not completed puppy vaccinations, ANY park). They are uncontrolled environments. You might be able to control your pup but there's not guarantee you can do the same of other people's dogs nor that they will or can of their own.

Make YOU the centre of your dog's fun rather than pushing that privilege and benefit to other dogs. Otherwise you are likely to find that you'll have difficulties in the future in recalling your dog away from others.

Edited July 12, 2009 by Erny

[mrs tornsocks]

Don't recall unless you know your pup is likely to come. Otherwise you teach your pup that him being called to come doesn't mean he has to if he doesn't want to.

Reward every recall well (not from your perspective, but from your pup's perspective).

Train in drive .

Set your pup up to win, not to fail.

Be exciting/valuable from your pup's perspective.

Be consistent.

Don't practice recall to the point of boredom. Short training stints.

When your pup recalls, reward and release him to go back to what he was doing (if that's suitable). IOW, don't always finish the fun on a recall.

Be careful about taking your pup to off lead parks (or if he's not completed puppy vaccinations, ANY park). They are uncontrolled environments. You might be able to control your pup but there's not guarantee you can do the same of other people's dogs nor that they will or can of their own.

Make YOU the centre of your dog's fun rather than pushing that privilege and benefit to other dogs. Otherwise you are likely to find that you'll have difficulties in the future in recalling your dog away from others.

Thanks Erny, a couple of questions

Don't recall unless you know your pup is likely to come.

He generally is, but as he's young and interested in lots of things going on around him, at some point I need to 'stretch' him, so the likelihood of him coming may be questionable. For example, at puppy school where there's so much going on, he generally comes but not always; it takes more work and I needed to be much more exciting than normal. I guess what I'm asking is where's the point that you start to push him a bit in more challenging situations.

Don't practice recall to the point of boredom. Short training stints.

Is training anything else but just calling him away from something else ? Ie when in the backyard, should I be giving him challenges/reasons (eg toys) for him to be distracted, then simply call his name, reward if/when he comes etc. etc. Are there any other training methods ? I should add that I've been using the triangle of tempt and he's going very well with that.

Finally, what is meant by train in drive ?

[Erny]

Don't recall unless you know your pup is likely to come.

He generally is, but as he's young and interested in lots of things going on around him, at some point I need to 'stretch' him, so the likelihood of him coming may be questionable. For example, at puppy school where there's so much going on, he generally comes but not always; it takes more work and I needed to be much more exciting than normal.

If you have him on lead, then you have the control necessary to show him "recall means recall". And yes - be exciting and yes show/give him the reward that's in store when he comes over (even if you needed to use the lead to 'encourage' him) and then release him back out again.

I guess what I'm asking is where's the point that you start to push him a bit in more challenging situations.

The "point" you seek is shown in your pup's recall responses. If he's not coming in less challenging situations, there's no point pushing the intensity of the challenge any higher yet.

Don't practice recall to the point of boredom. Short training stints.

Is training anything else but just calling him away from something else ? Ie when in the backyard, should I be giving him challenges/reasons (eg toys) for him to be distracted, then simply call his name, reward if/when he comes etc. etc. Are there any other training methods ? I should add that I've been using the triangle of tempt and he's going very well with that.

In the very early days with my pup, I rewarded him anytime he came over to 'check in'. No recalls behind that, just rewarding the fact that he volunteered to come over. That's really easy when they're pups as they tend to do that naturally, so I grabbed the opportunity to enhance that behaviour for 'later on' use.

Sometimes when he was distracted by something else in the yard (which being a puppy, could have been something as simple as a flower on a plant; a leaf moving on the ground with the breeze - this latter being, back then, HIGH distraction level ) and off lead I would make noises - inviting noises. When I saw he was running on his way back to me and knew it was a 'given', I'd throw in the recall command. So in this, I set him up to 'win'.

You do want to practice recalls when your pup is distracted as when you think about it, that's usually when we will need them to come back to us when later you are out and about. I did start with my pup's recall training using my hallway (which although I didn't plan it that way - it was something I didn't plan for when I was building, actually - is perfect for this sort of thing .... really long and narrow) with therefore obviously no distractions. This was only to get some 'word association' with the recall command happening.

Finally, what is meant by train in drive ?

This is about using the dog's instinctual drive to the advantage of training. Prey drive involves chase and catch. Using a tug (I built up his drive first and got him 'addicted' to the game of tug) I would add in the commands I'd been teaching him. He was driven to chase the tug and catch it (I do not mean that I threw it - to the contrary, I remain in control of the tug). But learnt to know that his drive wouldn't be satisfied until and unless he responded to those commands. This includes the recall (in fact, is excellent for the recall). And because instinct (remember - this is an internal emotion which drives the dog) was on my side, it promotes fast command responses.

There's a "Training in Drive" thread here on DOL, started by K9Force. I don't have the link to it but try a search using the DOL search engine in the training forum and it should come up. Or someone else might be able to put their finger on it for you - it's been referred to often when people have asked the same question as yourself. It is a lot of reading and fairly intricate but I think it will give you some insight to the topic.

Edited July 13, 2009 by Erny

[corvus]

Long lines are really useful for that transition phase where you're testing the recall. We have a 10m long one from Black Dog that is very lightweight and doesn't tend to get tangled in things. At least then if they take off you only have to get within 10m of them to get hold of them again.

Watch out for that adolescent phase that hits around 9 months or so. They suddenly get interested in all sorts of things and if your recall isn't conditioned by this point I reckon you'd do best going back to the long line for another few months. I wish someone had told us to do that. It set back our recall almost to the beginning and we had to do heaps of work at home. It is very good, now, and despite playing with dogs being Kivi's favourite activity, he will come away when called, and he does it at a run. It's supremely satisfying to see that.

Vary the rewards a bit, but keep them very awesome, like roast meat or steak. We were using the 4 Legs balls for ages, but Kivi one day got carsick after having some and before we had a chance to change to something else, he had decided he didn't want to come for those icky balls that remind him of being sick. So it's a good idea to have some different things on hand in case your dog abruptly decides they are not wild on something.

The hardest thing, I think, is to know when not to call. My OH is terrible at this and will call precisely when the dog has zoned out and is 100% focused on something else and on his way to have a good look at it. I ended up banning him from using Kivi's recall without my permission! OH thinks that when he calls and Kivi doesn't register, Kivi is being a little twerp. Kivi is just being a dog. He didn't hear the recall and if you can slot one in when he's momentarily distracted from whatever he was so focused on, he will come back. He doesn't even need to be looking at you. He just needs to flick his gaze to something else for a moment to know he's receptive again. If you call as he's starting to get uber focused on something, you can prevent the need to go after him because he will come back and you can go check out the exciting thing together.

A good distraction at home is someone else with food.

[Erny]

Watch out for that adolescent phase that hits around 9 months or so. They suddenly get interested in all sorts of things ...

That's a very good point to raise. Many people with puppies 'think' their recall is in place, when really it is only that their pup is not independant enough at that age to want to ignore them. Although I tend to think the age to watch is 5/6 months and upwards.

The hardest thing, I think, is to know when not to call. My OH is terrible at this and will call precisely when the dog has zoned out and is 100% focused on something else and on his way to have a good look at it.

I agree.

A good distraction at home is someone else with food.

TOT will do this for you too.

[huski]

Erny, I think this is the thread you were looking for:

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...c=43795&hl=

[Erny]

Thanks Huski. I do believe that's it .

[corvus]

Watch out for that adolescent phase that hits around 9 months or so. They suddenly get interested in all sorts of things ...

That's a very good point to raise. Many people with puppies 'think' their recall is in place, when really it is only that their pup is not independant enough at that age to want to ignore them. Although I tend to think the age to watch is 5/6 months and upwards.

That's probably more like it. I think it first occurred to Kivi that it might be better for him to not come to his recall when he was about 6 months. He would still come sometimes, but it was at its worse when he was around 9 months and he went back on the long line until he was about 12 months. He is now nearly 16 months and is an absolute pleasure to take to the park. I will be waiting for that independence to appear with our next dog and it will be back on long lines until the recall is really good in any situation. Unless I've managed to train a conditioned recall before that adolescent phase. Kivi's is still not quite conditioned at this point. He doesn't usually think about whether he will come or not, but every now and then he hesitates. I'm looking for a drop-everything-and-run recall.

And yeah, rewarding check-ins is a good thing to do, I reckon. Although sometimes Kivi thinks if coming over spontaneously equates to demanding a treat. I try to vary it so that he doesn't expect something in particular when he checks in. Sometimes he gets praise and sometimes a treat and sometimes a little bit of roast meat and sometimes just a little attention.