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Do you have difficulty getting your dog to come to you when you call him? Does he come when he feels like it, or do you find yourself chasing your dog around your local park trying to bargain with him, in an effort to get come to you?
If so here is a simple, yet tried and tested method to developing the perfect recall that works well with both puppies and older dogs.
1.Get your dogs attention
Getting your dogs attention means making eye contact with him. One of the best ways off achieving this is through the clicker training method.
- Take your dog to a distraction free environment, may be a quiet room in your house.When your dog is NOT looking at you call his name. When he looks into your direction, make eye contact with him then click your clicker and give him a food treat.
- Build in distractions gradually, for example, by repeating the exercise with other people in the room or try it out in the garden
2. Get to know what your dog likes
Make a mental note or better, a written note of all the things your dog enjoys as treats and rank them in importance: say from 1 to 3; 1 being a strong motivator, 2 having a lesser value than 1 as a motivator, and so on.
Some of the things your dog may like as treats may be:
- Food
- Play; with you or other dogs
- Walks
- Stroking
- A favourite toy
You will now not only have an understanding of the different treats your dog enjoys, more importantly you can now begin to match the strength of each motivator (reward) to different situations.
3. Give your dog a good reason to come to you
So many of us fail with the recall exercise because we don't give our dogs a good enough reason to come back to us, especially when they are engrossed in doing something else. To combat this, try the following.
- Take your dog to a distraction free place and attach him to a long training lead. Get down on the floor and call your dogs name. By now your dog should look at you immediately. When he does call him to you.
- Give your dog the incentive to come; clap your hands and get really animated. Your dog will then wonder what the fuss is all about and decide to check you out.
- If not give a little tug on his lead and call him towards you excitedly.
- When your dog comes to you take hold of his collar, praise him profusely and give him his treat.
- As soon as you have given your dog his treat, let him go again using a release command such as "OK". This lets your dog know he has done what is asked of him and he can know go back to play.
4.Use the numbers game to your advantage
When professional trainers teach a dog a new behaviour they set up what are known as schedules of reward. This basically means that the amount of times the dog receives a reward for his correct behaviour will vary. This approach to training can have a potent effect on shaping your dogs behaviour.
If you like playing fruit machines or gambling or even fishing for example, you will know what I mean. You keep fishing or you keep putting your money into the machine because you know you are going to win, but your not sure when or how much.
Well this will become your dogs attitude towards performing any given behaviour. He knows he will receive a reward for his efforts, but he is not sure what how much and when.This will keep him working with you.
Use the numbers game in different ways, treat your dog on a schedule of odd number, then change to treating on even numbers, for example. Treat your dog on a schedule of 1,3,5 and so on, then change and treat every 2,4 6 times and so on. Then change to treating on a 1,2,3 basis. Use the same principle in relation to the time you take hold of your dogs collar and keep him by you. Begin at 1 second then for 2 and build up. Varying the time will help build your dogs patience.
5. Practice, practice, practice
The final part to this simple formula, is to practice.
- Begin the exercise in your garden, experiment using the list of things your dog likes as treats, and note his responses with each.
- Build in distractions gradually.
- Move on the your local park, initially when it is not too busy. Keep your dog on his long lead to begin with, and call him to you. When he comes, praise him profusely and give him a favourite treat that as a reward.
- Be aware that you may need to change the reward in order to elisit the correct behaviour, due to the change in the environment. For example, a game with his favourite toy may have been a good reinforcer in the quiet room at home when you where first practicing, however, in the park wherethere is more to attract your dog, for example interesting sights and smells, you may need to step up and use a more potent reward, for example food treats.
- When it's time to let your dog off his lead, try calling him back frequently to begin with, remember to take hold of his collar for a few seconds and to give him a treat and let him go right after using your release word.
- Increase the length of time you keep hold of you dogs when he comes back to you, and vary the amount of time you give him his treat as already described.
Keep this up and it won't be long before your perfect recalls will become the envy of your dog loving friends.
I have been training dogs since the late 1980's. I now live in France, where I continue to train dogs, and also write about dog behaviour, care, and training related topics. If you would like free further information about dogs, and their training and care, please visit my blog at http://www.toptrainingtips.com
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