Teaching Recall

[Guest Zizi]

How does one teach recall to a Velcro hound? Jerzi is never at any distance from me to train this. My only time at being able to do it is when she goes off in the yard to do her business after she is done I will tell her to come. Problem being is the yard is a very very small area. So there truly is not much distance between us.

 

Is this enough for her to learn it? And than do it if she was ever far away from me? She does come when I do it in the yard with her now. Any insight on training would be great.

[krissy]

Will she not leave your side if you took her to a larger enclosed space like a baseball diamond or greyhound fun run? I used to practice my recalls at fun runs. If not then what you'll likely need to do is teach a stay command first. When her stay is solid you would take her to a baseball diamond and ask her to stay at one end, walk away and call her from a distance. This will work to start teaching a recall, but in my experience most dogs that learn a recall will perform this type of recall 100% but that doesn't mean they will recall from a run, from sniffing something, or from going to greet another dog/person.

[RedHead]

If she won't leave your side, I would actually work on teaching her that it is okay to be away from you before working on recall For example, you can teach her to go to a "place" first (a mat or some other target) and then call her to you. With Teague I just bring him down the hallway or into another room, put him into a "stay", and then call him. If he didn't know "stay" he would just follow me since I have the treats, so I actually trained that before recall.

Edited July 22, 2013 by RedHead