Why Recall Training Is So Important

One of the most important things that you can teach your dog to do is recall, to come back to you regardless of a distraction. This one exercise can save your dog's life.

If your dog sees something, for instance, across the street when you're outside or you simply open the door and your dog sprints out, you need a mechanism, a way to stop your dog in its tracks and come back to you.

Use a Positive Tone and Clear Commands

Your voice and body language matter

Some things that people do incorrectly that causes confusion with dogs is they use their name way too much and they use it for correction. Then when they try to call them over to them using that same name, the dog associates it with a negative action.

You don't want your dog thinking that their name is negative, so whenever you call your dog to you, you need to use a sweeter, lighter tone with your body language matching it.

Whenever you're giving a dog a command, you want to say their name first, then the command, and you shouldn't be using your dog's name in any other fashion unless to get them to come to you and basically refocus on you. 

A lot of very small dogs, even medium sized dogs are hesitant to come when called because they don't trust that you're going to do anything positive when they come to you. This could be just something simple like picking them up. Some dogs don't like to be picked up. Maybe you then put them in their crate and heading somewhere without them.

Building Trust in Recall Training

Earn your dog’s confidence through consistency

Recall is about trust. If your dog does not trust you, they're not going to come to you. It's also about respect. Respect is earned just like we are in respect by being consistent and fair with your dogs, things that you might not even realize could be causing trust issues.

Using your hands way too much with your dog could be causing trust issues and not really allowing them to come to you fully and to refocus on you. When you're working with the dog on recall, you want to start in a controlled environment. That's the best training environment for your dog to learn, usually it's in your home first.

Start in a small space. Get your dog to come to you consistently a few times in a row here first. This is not a process that you can rush. Your dog has to come to you consistently in that one space. Once you've nailed that down, then you can add another space to that which could be another room or a larger room.

I would recommend practicing all throughout your house first in different rooms, eventually graduating to where they can have full run of the house and give you their attention when you demand it.

Why Outdoor Recall Is Harder

Managing distractions and building focus

I don’t recommend trying to recall outside off leash until your dog is perfect with recall in the home. Impulse control all happens first inside, Your environment will change your behavior and most dogs outside are completely different than inside.

Bark Busters teaches a very specific recall exercise that is a powerful one in order to program your dog to be constantly aware of you as opposed to distractions. Dogs are really not great at multitasking, so if you teach them that they need to choose you over the distraction and that you are the one that needs their attention more than anything else around them, that's going to help you tremendously.

Get Professional Help with Recall Training

We can teach you all of this and more and solve any behavioral issue that your dog is experiencing. If you're interested in one of our training programs, please give us a call, send us a message, and you can also fill out the free behavioral quiz that's on our website and we'll get back to you immediately. Thank you so much.