Coming When Called

Jabu thinks recall is a super-fun game that always involves great rewards.

Arguably, this is the single-most important thing you can teach your dog or puppy. Most clients I work with tell me their dog or puppy either has zero recall or it’s hit and miss, depending on how distracted the dog is.

If this sounds like your situation, read on.

You’ll hear most dog trainers talk about “setting the dog up for success”. That just means making it easy for the dog to do the right thing. Set up the situation, dog does the right thing, and then yay! treats and praise rain from the sky! But that’s just a step along the way.

The challenge I hear most is that the dog does great in the back yard, yet utterly fails when there are other dogs around, or a favourite person, or even just other great stuff to sniff and explore.

There are a few reasons for this, but mainly it’s because teaching a good recall in the back yard is only the first step to a reliable recall.

If you can organize a series of small steps to practice in that are increasing in difficulty bit by bit, then you may find success. If you get stuck anywhere along the way—or just would rather someone do it for you, reach out to me for help.