Teaching your dog/ puppy to come when called
Basic recall takes most dogs and puppies approximately five minutes in an area where there’s no distractions.
Below I have put together the different stages of learning recall in any areas;
- Acquiring the behaviour – In other words getting your puppy or dog to understand and be happy to come back to you when asked.
- Perfecting the behaviour – Practising until your puppy or rescue gets the behaviour every time you give a cue getting an immediate response.
- Moving to new areas at a pace your dog or puppy can cope with.
- Introduce your dog to more challenging areas – At this stage, it’s about teaching them to stay focused on you rather than being distracted.
All the training is done very subtly, I teach you to understand when to respond, how to praise and when. I always start in an area where there’s no distractions, then teaching you how to gradually move onto areas with more distractions. This stage is key to gaining success. The environment you’re working in is very important.
In the first session with me, you will learn how to get recall in a non-reactive environment first. Once you have mastered this stage, you are now ready to move on to teaching your puppy or dog in a more demanding environment, other distractions dogs etc, remembering you need to work at a pace your dog can cope.
If your dog is not responding.
This can be due to your environment or the way that you’re teaching your dog. Communication and environment is key, understanding how your dog learns and learning to interact in a way they can understand. Dogs do get distracted if they see a puppy or another dog, new smells will also distract your dog. Teaching your dog to check back on you turns into a natural reaction.