Building a Reliable Recall

Having a strong recall command is one of the most important priorities for training your dog because it will be the cue that saves your dog’s life someday. Sure, having a recall that gets your dog into the kitchen when it’s dinner time is nice but we want you to have a recall that gets your dog to jump over piles of food and ignore squirrels and cats to come to you when he’s in danger. To do this takes a little bit of planning and lots of practice.

Remember, it takes professional dog trainers 4 years to get a 100% reliable recall! This is something you’ll have to work on and it begins by memorizing the following rules:

1. Only say your recall word once

Everyone has seen those people in the park screaming after they're dogs, "Fido, you come here! Come here right now! You come!" When you say a command more than once, your dog starts to tone you out. Your words begin to sound like the telephone ringing which makes noise, but doesn't has no affect on your dog so she ignores it. Instead, we are only going to say your recall word once and we mean it the first time.

2. Only call your dog when you think you can make it happen

Every time you get ready to use your formal recall word, you must look around and decide if it's likely that your dog will come. If your dog is playing in the water with her three favorite dog friends, do you really think she's going to leave them and come to you? Not yet, but that's why we're training her. So make sure you're only calling her from a situation where you think she's going to do it. Starting off in your living room is a great idea!

3. Never call them for something unpleasant

Have you ever had a friend invite you over to their house for a cup of coffee only to discover they really needed help painting three of their rooms? Now painting for a friend is not bad but when you expect a relaxing coffee date and end up being put to work instead, it can be disappointing and the next time your friend calls, you'll think twice before popping over for a nice afternoon. Your dog does the same thing every time you say "Puppy Come" and then you give her a bath or clip her nails. So guess what, we are never going to use the formal recall word for anything unpleasant. You can use all sorts of other words and happy voice noises to grab your dog for those activities but we aren't going to tarnish the sacred and always good recall word. We never want the dog to question whether or not she should come. We want her to think, "Hey, that word always means fun!"

4. If your dog doesn’t come, you have to SAVE it

Especially in the beginning, your dog won't always understand these fun recall exercises. So let's say you took a chance on rule number 2, you called your dog, but she decided to do something on her own instead. That's okay but now you have to SAVE it. You have to walk over to your dog, show her the bait you had (this is the next rule) and lure her to where you called her from. Luring means putting the bait near her nose so she follows you to the spot. Now give her some of the fabulous reward and pet her. Your dog is not learning to come, but she's not learning that she can get away with not coming. This is very important. You must SAVE it every time she doesn't come the first time you call her.

5. Fabulous Fabulous Fabulous reward!

This is one of the hardest jobs for dogs. You're basically asking them to leave something they're very interested to come to you. Because of this difficult job, we are going to give them a fitting paycheck. You are going to find your dog's favorite thing and only give it to her when you're training this behavior. So whatever it is (smoked salmon, blue cheese, meat and gravy baby food - my favorite or something else) make sure you have it on hand when you're going to train this. She only gets it when you're training and gets it every time you train. The only except is if you have to use your recall word for safety purposes like your dog runs into the street. Then of course, you may not have your bait but this is what we've been training for so it's okay.

How to begin:

These five short rules are absolutely crucial for you to build a strong recall command on your dog. Now, once you’ve memorized these rules, you have to pick the word you’re going to use. I try to stay away from both the words ‘here’ and ‘come’ as they are so overused and it’s so easy to say them in our daily language when we don’t realize we’re breaking the rules. Be creative, you can use any word or phrase. For example, you might use the word ‘bacon’ if that’s you’re recall bait. Then you’re first exercise will go like this:

Start in a low distracting environment like your living room and wait until your dog is on the other side of the room. Then say their name and your recall word, “Sparky, Bacon.” Now, throw a big puppy party to convince him to come over. This includes lots of clapping and ‘happy voice’ and whatever words excite him. Remember, don’t use his recall word again though as it will weaken the command.

As soon as he comes over, give him the fabulous bait you picked out and pet him for 20 seconds. That feels like a long time but in the beginning while you’re building your dog’s recall, you want it to be a big deal.

Now, after you’ve practiced this a few times in your house, take it to your backyard which is certainly more interesting. Then, slowly start increasing the difficulty of the situations you’re calling him out of. Remember, it will be a while before he’s able to recall out of the dog park or near something exciting like a squirrel but if you keep following the rules, you’ll have a professional recall in no time!

Frequently Asked Questions - Recall

How do I call my dog for the every day activities if I don't want to follw these rules?

These rules are all for a FORMAL recall word that you will use in emergency situations. I like to have an informal one as well. I will pick a second word like, "Front and Center" and will try to follow the rules above but allow myself to use the cue even when I can't follow the rules. This way it's still mostly a good cue to the dog and therefore pretty useful.

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Green Paws Training Options

We do recall exercises in our Recall Workshop and all our classes.

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Books and Tools

Recall books and tools coming soon!

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