Bindi Teaching ch9

 

CHAPTER 9.

YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND

 

URBAN RECALL

You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running, to see you again. Well, that’s what songwriter Carol King said.

I am fortunate to be able to let my lass off her lead at a some places within a walk or short drive from home.  Some of these places are popular leash free places and pups get lots of chances to interact.  Dogs and owners gather in small groups, sometimes together sometimes apart.

I know of what I speak when I say the Carol King lyric is far removed from the world of calling dogs back.  Real life at a popular off-lead area can be a cacophony of repeated whistles, shouts, loudly yelled dog names and inventive cursing.  Sort of like parents at the Saturday morning kid’s sports match.

We have covered the look-at-me exercise earlier and I suggested it was a great tool to get name recognition and recall by gradually introducing these things in areas of increasing distraction.

I am not going to waste pages of words repeating this in another way.  What I will say yet again though is that if pup knows that looking at you, answering to its name and coming when called is a good thing, gets reward, and feels safe, then you will both be happy to reunite on demand.

There is one rule that overrides when calling your dog to you in every instance.

DO NOT SET POOCH UP TO FAIL.

In the early training and in the mid way training and when fully trained it is up to you to ensure commands are given when the likelihood of obedience is at its maximum.  You can start this by always observing what pooch is focussed on and using touch, voice, whistle or reward as appropriate to attract that attention back to you before issuing a command so you get the highest chance of success. 

Recall depends on how well you have laid down the initial basic look-at-me stuff.  Pup should know you are a safe place to come to. That getting a reward for returning is absolutely going to happen and that being with you is better than the alternative activity it was involved in.

Yeah, right.

Dogs are dogs and they have a wonderful propensity to be able to totally focus on a thing. Anything. Completely.  So much so that a bomb could go off and they will stay sniffing a blade of grass.  Well, that may be a bit extreme but you know what I’m getting at.

This is going to happen regardless of how wonderful your recall training is.  It is not a failure. It is dog focus. If pup is locked into a thing, whatever that is, good or bad, you have to ensure that you recognise what level of attention breaker you need to perform in order to distract pup from that activity, focus or obsession.

If pooch has got itself into a chasing frenzy then it is unlikely a gentle name call will break the tie. Increasing the volume of the name call will also probably not work. Then screaming the pups name with great agitation will in all likelihood just excite and encourage the pup to go at the target harder perhaps thinking you are both now in it together. 

A definition of stupidity is repeating an action and expecting a different outcome.  If you call your pup once and it does not respond, it is probably not because pup’s ears didn’t hear you, it’s because pup’s brain didn’t let the message through just then as it was full of more fun or more important stuff.  Pup may remember and respond to that command when the more important or fun stuff has passed.  Or it may not.   

I mentioned earlier on that it was important to have normal treats and high value treats in training.  Same goes for audible commands and whistles etc.  High value treats should be linked to a different and stronger audible cue like a whistle on your key-ring, or if you are blessed with the ability, a shrill pitched whistle you can make.

By linking a greater sound to a higher reward you have imprinted a scale of pleasure for a different level of recall.  I am not saying this is a solve-all bit of training but I will say recall training is again something that never ceases, is practiced every day and is always a nice thing for pup to do that always gets rewarded.

I would suggest that if neither a call nor a whistle distract pooch from its involvement, then you may just have to move yourself towards the distraction.  It is amazing how this can galvanise pup’s attention and then you can distract for a treat a pat or just to return for a walk that pup will follow. 

What I would counsel is before you attempt the recall, try to assess what you think the pup will respond to and use the value of call appropriate. If that does not work, do not repeat the same call.  If pup ignored it once there is no reason it will respond the next time.   You have to change tack and get the distraction using a higher gambit.  I said above, you may have to physically intervene. 

Or you may choose to ignore the disobedience and go do something pup will be interested in.  You have people smarts.  They are not always better than pup smarts, but hey, let’s hope huh?

In any case, however it happens, reward the pooch when the attention returns to you.  I witness too many times a pup finally coming back to a frustrated owner for pup to only get an unpleasant reaction.  Every return should be rewarded, an immediate return with a high value reward, a poor or failed return with restrained acknowledgement.  You must always be a safe place to return to.

There is no quick method to embed recall training.  Recall is step by step rewarded reinforcement of behaviours that you like. It starts with the eye to eye training, name recognition training, come from close training, and eventually come when distracted training with high value reward and distraction calls.  It takes less time than you would think.  If you persist. If you observe. If you are patient.

Half-hearted occasional recall training will bring half-hearted occasional recalls.  No surprises there then.

There are no free lunches in recall training, every recall victory is to be celebrated not expected and every failed recall is to be assessed if it was handled as well as it could have been by you. Pooch will do what it knows will feel the best, they are like that, good time junkies.

There can be cases of lesser recall need, like when pup is just off doing and you would like them near and not doing. If they refuse to return, as Bindi does sometimes, trying to flex her independence, or belligerently not wanting to give up a treasure, use the ignore tactic.  Pup is probably looking to garner your increased attention by refusing recall.   While that is cute it is not a desired trait. 

Weigh up if there is no danger about as it may just be as well to ignore the pup. Your physicality is a powerful tool, so ignore the disobedience, change direction of your walking. This distances you from pup, which all things being equal, will not be what pup wanted.  When pup follows you, reward with voice, touch, or treat and continue to ignore the treasure or cause of refusal.  Move along until pup relaxes into normal.  Then reconnect, reward, and on you both go.

If pup does not follow you as you get to a good distance, out of direct sight or after a minute or so, then that is an indication pup is not yet ready for the responsibility of being granted leash-free time in that much of a distracting environment.  Use whatever skills you have available to calmly attract pooch back to being safe with you. Review what part of the bonding training has not landed.  It is not pup’s fault.

Sorry to say, but probably you may have skipped or been too swift in the low distraction training and yes, you may need to calmly review Chapter 2 and get the bonding process more solidly in place again.