Positive recall training

So continuing on the theme of the last few posts I want to touch a little bit on recall training.

We all know how annoying it is when your dog is running around, and all that recall training that you feel you have put in is out of the window…

There are too many distractions in the environment, your dog is having one of those days, or maybe you are having one of those days – I’m not one to judge!

When your dog eventually comes back to you, you have two choices…

1 – reward your dog through gritted teeth.

2 – shout at your dog because they haven’t done what they were told.

Which would you do? Honestly now?

I know a lot of us would chose option 2, our dog hasn’t done what they have been told, they disobeyed us and they need to have a consequence for this action.

However, what if I told you that you are always reinforcing or punishing your dog for the very last thing that they did. How would option 2 work then? Remember you would be punishing the very last thing that they did – the coming back to you…

What would the effects of this be on your recall the next time you called your dog?

I know that its difficult sometimes to reward our dog when we know that they have messed us around but we have to reward them, as we are really rewarding the coming back behaviour which will increase the likelihood that they will come straight back next time!

So don’t be the shouty, nasty person in the park (I wouldn’t want to go near them, would you?) and be the one who is working on their recall and who is improving walk by walk!