In Your Face Recalls

[BCNut]

Hi all,

Keen to see if anyone is familiar with the concept of 'In your face recalls' for puppies? I read about it in 'The Focused Puppy' by D. Jones & J. Keller.

If you haven't heard of it, the sequence is: Pup's name, recall cue, click, treat. This is performed with the pup directly in front of you and there is no expectation for the pup to actually move.

The idea is that it makes a positive association with recalls.

I personally don't understand this - it seems to be something like the name game/eye contact with a recall cue in it?? It just seems that it would be confusing to pup - we would be performing the same behaviour with two different cues?

Any thoughts?

Cheers

[dragonwoman]

Hi all,

Keen to see if anyone is familiar with the concept of 'In your face recalls' for puppies? I read about it in 'The Focused Puppy' by D. Jones & J. Keller.

If you haven't heard of it, the sequence is: Pup's name, recall cue, click, treat. This is performed with the pup directly in front of you and there is no expectation for the pup to actually move.

The idea is that it makes a positive association with recalls.

I personally don't understand this - it seems to be something like the name game/eye contact with a recall cue in it?? It just seems that it would be confusing to pup - we would be performing the same behaviour with two different cues?

Any thoughts?

Cheers

I see the sense in it. Often do it myself to reinforce that that position is positive. Interested to know what people think Come means to the dog? In my case I want it to mean sitting right in front, the running in part is simply to get the dog there, it is not the Come. If I call my dogs and don't want a formal sit in front, I just say Here. Experience has taught me many times that what I think I have taught the dog is not what they have actually come to associate with the word, made me a better trainer!!

[paddles]

to my dogs, come means come to me... and preferably stay with me. we teach recall by having family members around the house (and later yard) and they call the dog, the dog comes, get given a treat, then someone else calls the dog... and so on... we call it doggy ball....

[W Sibs]

I've read about that. To me, that's how i taught my dogs the 'look at me' command and I wouldn't use it as recall, but I do understand what they are trying to do.

[piper]

I haven't done it but I have seen it demoed at a seminar years ago and the dog worked it out very quickly The recall cue really became like a click in that click = treat, recall cue also = treat so race to handler to get treat. It is straight out classical conditioning. Look at how many dogs when the handler clicks if they never get rewards away from the handler will rush in, same thing.

I think it would work best with a dog with a high drive for food rewards and also I would want to use hugh value rewards if doing it.

[RubyBlue]

I did it with my pup. Worked fantastically in our case. Hes now 18months and in all the highly distracting environments we frequent (off lead dog park, beach, creek, etc) I can count the number of times he has not immediately whipped round and come charging in on one hand. Of those few times he did not immediately come there is only one time when I went and got him, the rest he came on the second cue.

I maintain his recall with high value food and good timing - ie most of the times I call him I am 99.99% certain he will come straight in.

[Cosmolo]

It's all about classical conditioning and IMO when a CC program is followed and completed well it is the MOST effective way to get a reliable recall without the need for aversives. I see too many people saying 'come' or similar to a dog that has no association with that word- conditioning prior to using the word in practical situations is easier for both dog and handler.

[BCNut]

Ok, thanks for the thoughts everyone, appreciate it :)

Will give it a try and see how we go.