# Improving His Recall (advice?)



## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

Right now, Trent's recall really leaves something to be desired. We would used to be able to go on short, off leash walks, but now I put on his leash even if he's heading outside to go to the bathroom. 

Inside the house, his recall is stellar. The moment we go outside and add in the distractions, he's hopeless. He loves chasing after squirrels, birds, and cats, wants go run over to greet every person he sees, and loves to invite random dogs to play with him. I can get him to ignore these when he's on his leash, but otherwise, he may as well be deaf! 

I'm being told that it's just him being a teenager, so for now, I just try to do my best to strengthen it. We're still practicing recalls at home and in the backyard, but does anyone have any suggestions for reliable recalls outside? 

I keep my voice light and happy, never call him to me to correct a behavior or end a game, always treat him when he comes to me, keep my body posture inviting, etc. None of it seems to be doing us much good. He's doing fantastic in all other aspects, it's just coming when called that's going down the drain. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


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## Amaruq (Aug 29, 2001)

I would start working him on on lead recalls outside where FEW distractions are at a distance and slowly allow the distractions to be a little closer. This is one way that classes are excellent because your dog learns to listen around distractions in a controlled environment.


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## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

That's what we did in the obedience class I took with Trent in October. He did great, then, but not he seems to have forgotten what he learned. Unfortunately, there are no more classes available these few months because of the holiday season, and the weather and long drive required to get to the classes, so I'm just trying to do what I can with Trent here.

I'm thinking of buying a 20 ft. leash to use, and follow your advice with working on his recall while he's on his leash. The deal with him is that he gets excited when he starts running outside, and especially when he sees other dogs or people and realizes he's off leash.


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

Use a longline. Right now, he has learned that he can simply blow you off. Remember the guideline about never giving your dog a command that you can't enforce? I have a feeling you're doing that often on your offleash walks.... 

A dog should NEVER be given more freedom than he can handle. This goes for housebreaking, chewing, and recall work. 

In fact, you may have inadvertently trained your pup that "Come" means the opposite of what you want it to. Recall how you taught your pup to sit? You waited til he was doing what you wanted him to -- moving his rear end toward the floor -- then you said the word SIT. This paired the movement with the command. Thus the dog learns the meaning of the word.

But too often, we teach our dogs words like come (and quiet) when they're doing the opposite of what we want. We should be telling our dog (when we're training him) Come when he's running toward us at full speed. But instead, the dog is standing still far away from us and we tell him to Come. Or he's running AWAY from us, and we tell him to Come. If we do this enough, pup learns that Come = Run away from owner. We call this "burning" a word. 

If you've burned a word, or if your dog just completely ignores you when you use it, you need to start all over with a new word. Some people use Here, Front, Recall. Doesn't matter what your word is, just don't use the word "Come" anymore. 

So, for now on, no off leash walks for Trent. At 10 months old, he's pretty young for off leash walks anyhow. If you want to give him some freedom, use a long line. 

And start with your new word and start all over. Make yourself fascinating and train him the new word. Since you already have great recall in the house, this will take a couple days, if that. He'll recognize the tone of your voice and the fact that you're in another room and generalize the new command pretty quickly. Then start working him in your yard ON A LONG LINE. Keep the line short at first. Let him get a bit distracted, call him to you. If he doesn't respond right away, give the line a sharp tug, and step away from him (don't back up; step away, like you're something to be chased). 

Slowly increase the distance of the longline that you give him. It's tempting to give him as much distance as you think he can handle all at once. But just because he's not distractable today doesn't mean he'll be so focused tomorrow. So we want to give him incrementally larger bits of freedom. Keep doing this until he is very reliable on the longline in your yard. 

Then you can try him off the long line during the day in your yard. For some reason, my experience is that dogs are more reliable during the day than at night. Try to time it so that the neighborhood school hasn't just let out or there aren't any large distractions. Keep these training sessions short, but do them often

When he's in the yard playing, call him to you, give him a treat, and say "ok, go play," so that he never knows if being called is just snack time or if it means something else. Other times, call him to you and play tug with him (or some other game that he plays WITH you). This way, being recalled can result in something BETTER than what he was doing before. 

Once you've been doing with for several weeks (at least), THEN, go to a park that has a fenced in area (baseball field, tennis court, etc), and start all over, the same as we did in your yard. First the short long line, then a bit longer, then working with the full long line for quite a while. Then working with no long line until you get full recall 100% of the time.

You still won't walk your dog without a leash. At least, I wouldn't recommend it, not until he has an adult brain. Adolescents are goofy. They don't think before they act. And lets face it, they're GSDs. Most people don't like GSDs rushing up to them offleash with no handler attached to them. I certainly don't, and I'm pretty easygoing about dogs in general. The risks to you are pretty significant. I know that your community is a lot more laid back than many, but letting your GSD "greet" people and dogs as he sees fit just isn't a good idea for anyone. 

You have a nice GSD bred with strong drives. We can't expect him to act like a golden retriever. We need to give him training and guidance to be everything you (and his breeder) wanted. 

Once Trent is an adult and can maintain a 6-10 or so ft radius around you all the time, then you can consider walking him off leash. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm saying it will take a lot more time and work.


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## DianaB (Jan 3, 2007)

One thing we did worked very well for Siena's recall (and we still use it, esp. when she comes back after major distractions (like after chasing a cat)). 

Find a really, really good treat (in our case, cooked chicken or beef) or something that s/he won't get very often, but truly enjoys. Use this treat ONLY when doing recall. You can start this inside where there are minimal distractions, then slowly add the distractions.

When s/he comes to you (even if she is already coming towards you and then you say "come") then 'reward' the dog with continuous yummy treats for 20-30 seconds. If you do this a few times a day, s/he will remember that last time s/he got something really tasty and will be encouraged to come when called.

Worked like a charm for us and was good advice early on from our trainer when we were not getting consistent results from the recall.

Good luck!!


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

Good point Diana. 

Rei, Costco sells sliced roasted chicken breast (already cooked-- so easy!







) that I use for recalls. If Trent can tolerate small amounts of grains, they have cooked meatballs in the freezer section that my trainer uses. Dogs will jump somersaults for these. Super easy. Super delicious.


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## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

Thanks for great advice. I really do appreciate it!



> Quote:find a really, really good treat (in our case, cooked chicken or beef) or something that s/he won't get very often, but truly enjoys.


LOL Maybe I should start carrying raw knuckle bones in my pocket, then! Cooked chicken doesn't do much for Trent, but he'll jump off a cliff for honey ham! I'll definitely give that a try.



> Originally Posted By: 3K9Mom
> So, for now on, no off leash walks for Trent. At 10 months old, he's pretty young for off leash walks anyhow.


Oh, he hasn't had an off leash walk for months and months. The moment he started blowing me off, I stopped with the off leash walking. The times when this problem arises is when I let him off in a large, empty field to play ball. I try my best to only let him off in places that I know are empty and are likely to stay empty at that time, because I'm very well aware that having a large, rambunctious dark colored GSD could be unnerving for even dog lovers.

When we are alone, his recall is decent, and he obeys most of the time. But you bring up a good point about "burning" the word - I'll start trying a different one. I wasn't even aware of what I may be doing regarding the command and the associations Trent may make. He used to do very well with coming on command, I guess I didn't think about it as much as I should have. Bad puppy mom!









Thank you for taking the time to make that informative post


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## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

> Originally Posted By: 3K9MomGood point Diana.
> 
> Rei, Costco sells sliced roasted chicken breast (already cooked-- so easy!
> 
> ...


Meatballs sound good, but there's no guaranteeing I won't finish them off first









I did just buy a hunk of honey ham today, which Trent seems to love. I'll probably end up using that for now as the "special recall reward".


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

Watch ham. It's really fatty, and can lead to pancreas problems. 

Maybe if you take 1/4 ham bites and 3/4 chicken bites in a bag and mix them up together (shake and bake style) so that the chicken gets the ham flavor on it, he'd like it...?

Also, if he's expecting ham, he'll come running (regardless of whether you feed it EVERY time). I like to feed my kids a variety of really high value treats, so they never know what they'll get. I think it makes them more excited. They love Costco's juicy moist chicken, but I think they'd get bored with it if they got it each time. But when they don't know if it's going to be chicken, or cheese, or lamb lung, or something else that's scrumptious, it just makes it that much more exciting...and they RACE each other to see who can get to mom first.


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## Amaruq (Aug 29, 2001)

With Jethro, who is only a month older, I use a tug toy to randomly reward his recalls. Tug is Jet's FAVORITE thing and it works to strengthen our bond as it is highly interactive and the reward is longer than it takes for him to eat a treat. I also do not BRIBE him to come by shaking the tug then calling him. I "try" (not always as good as I should be) to whistle to get his attention, then when he is in motion to me HERE, and I will take several steps back which usually increases his speed. Once he is coming fast I will present the tug which, one of these days will be painful for me because just like a Jet, Jethro has after burners and can hit Mach 2 on recalls. Other times he will not get the tug until he is already back to me. I like to mix it up and keep him guessing. Other times he will get treats, others praise and lots of attention. Depends on the distractions I am calling him from AND the distance. 

I also take him to baseball/softball fields to let him run and play off lead with my dogs or his buddy Newman. They are nice because they are fully fenced except for the access points. If his recall was any less than it is I would leave him on a long tracking line but he is pretty good and he would tie himself to Newman with a long line the way they wrestle.


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## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

Once again, I'm proving to be quite the bad puppy Mom! I do feed him ham on the occasion, I didn't know it was so bad for dogs. 

I'll think of a way to cook the chicken to make Trent love it. He likes chicken fine, just not enough for it to have a very high value. We're actually not big on chicken ourselves - two people in our family don't eat chicken. But if Trent ends up going crazy for it, we'll buy it in a heartbeat. We'll also give meatballs a try. 

Good thing I'm on a holiday vacation - we're going to be making quite a few trips to the grocery and pet supply stores!



> Quote:With Jethro, who is only a month older, I use a tug toy to randomly reward his recalls. Tug is Jet's FAVORITE thing and it works to strengthen our bond as it is highly interactive and the reward is longer than it takes for him to eat a treat.


I'm not quite sure why I didn't think of it sooner - TOYS! Trent just lives to play tug or to chase a ball, and how hard is it to have a tug or lacross ball stored in my pocket?

By the way - Jethro's only a month older than Trent? Can't be!


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## DianaB (Jan 3, 2007)

when Siena was younger (and before allergies) she also liked the Natural Balance (log rolls) that can be cut up very small and given to them. Just depends on what your dog likes. 

And, if you can stomach it, beef heart (gags me just to cook it, but Siena loves it)


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## Rei (Oct 10, 2008)

The NB rolls are amazing. A huge hunk of yummy treat for a low price - I always have a roll or two in the freezer! However, we just use those for regular training.

Where do you recommend buying hearts or livers? I don't think I've seen them at Costco, and I don't know any local butchers. I'm not squeamish about hearts at all - worked as an intern in a pediatric cardiologist lab, and had to work with pig hearts, help out with animal studies, watched a lot of videos on open heart surgery. Desensitized me for sure!


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## Virginia (Oct 2, 2008)

For recall I used liverwurst...the kind you can get at the deli counter. Smells kinda funny, looks even funnier, but it does the trick!


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## W.Oliver (Aug 26, 2007)

I find dragging a child behind the dog creates enough drag to make the recall challenging.

Recall Development Video 

(sorry, I simply could not resist getting some more milage out of this video)


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## DianaB (Jan 3, 2007)

I struggle to find beef heart or beef liver in my area. Sometimes I can find the liver at one of the Ranch 99 markets (asian market), but as it is not organic, I decided that it is probably not best to buy (as all toxins are caught in the liver which would mean she's eating it all). The beef heart I can get through a local BARF co-op in my area, but other than that, I can't easily find it. If she could eat chicken (which she has an allergy to), I could use chicken hearts, but that doesn't work for us, but may work for you.

I tried not being squeamish about the hearts and it just disgusts me to cook







. I actually end up cooking it on our outdoor grill which has a side burner, at least the smell doesn't stick to the walls. Yuck! I can watch the surgeries no problem it's more the smell for me. Heck, I have a hard enough time cooking chicken without being grossed out. I'm not a vegetarian, but could be easy enough (but I love my red meat!)


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## Amaruq (Aug 29, 2001)

> Originally Posted By: Rei
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, Jethro was born 1/18.







When working on a recall I prefer tug to fetch for a reward. That way they associate a play session with their fav human for coming back.


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

Easiest training treat - Nuked Dogs.

Take a hot dog, cut it into thin slices, arrange on a paper plate (or paper towel on a regular plate) and nuke on Medium, checking often, until the slices are dried, shrivelly little things!

They freeze great, aren't greasy, don't tempt me to eat them instead of giving them to the dog and transport easy!


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## Kayla's Dad (Jul 2, 2007)

Great advice from everyone to give you a couple of tools.



> Originally Posted By: DianaBOne thing we did worked very well for Siena's recall (and we still use it, esp. when she comes back after major distractions (like after chasing a cat)).
> 
> Find a really, really good treat (in our case, cooked chicken or beef) or something that s/he won't get very often, but truly enjoys. Use this treat ONLY when doing recall. You can start this inside where there are minimal distractions, then slowly add the distractions.
> 
> ...


I have a slight variation to this that I use with Lancer. We started by making it a game-in his puppy class we called it the name game.
Instead of treating for a while when he comes in, I would toss the treat a short distance. As soon as the dog gets the first treat, call him using your recall word or just his name, as he comes toward you praise and toss another treat in a different direction. Keep it up for a while. The second part will change from "as he comes in" to when he comes in all the way in and that progression can happen real fast in the first session with a couple of tosses. We've gone from where it was in close quarters to where when we are out, Lancer recognizes the game and he knows he needs to come all the way in for the next treat toss.

The toy I use is the Orbee on a rope. That thing is Lancer's obsession (and fortunately not something that big sis Kayla has much interest in) and it only comes out for our hikes and training sessions. I use it similar to what Rug said, but at times I also just carry by my side when he is off leash (sometimes with one in each hand!) The few times Lancer is making up his mind on returning or paying more attention elsewhere, I will swing it around to help him make up his mind.

I use these two methods randomly and use just a recall and immediate release to go back to whatever he was doing or just staying close for a minute.


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## BuoyantDog (Aug 21, 2009)

Rei, your post sounds like it could have been written by me. I am so glad I found this. 

3K9Mom, thank you so much for your thoughtful and informative post. Glory is about 50/50 on "come" and I bet if I changed the word (to "recall") and follow your post, her recall would be 99/100.

Thank you!


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## 3K9Mom (Jun 12, 2006)

Buoyant, if you have kids or family members who aren't consistent (they won't go GET the dog when she doesn't come, for example), don't tell them about the new word/training. They can keep using "come." 

Then YOU have a command that's 100%, which they can't ruin for you.


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## Melgrj7 (Jul 5, 2009)

What I do with my dogs is have them on a long line, let them get distracted. Then while they are sniffing and oblivious to the fact that I am there I put a really, really high value, stinky treat in their nose and lure them around towards me and back up a few steps. As I am backing up (and they are following) I tell them to "come", stop and lure them into a sit. Then I send them back out to do what they were doing. I do that a gazillion times for a few weeks or more.

Then I try calling them without the lure. If they turn to me I either bow and praise with open arms, or I pull out a tug toy and run the opposite way (making sure they sit in front prior to playing tug though) and then send them back out to sniff stuff. I do this and the above step at a ratio of about 25% of the time new step, 75% of the time old step for a few weeks.

Then, I start to fade out step #1 over time. 

If at any point the dog doesn't come, go back a bit. 

After awhile the dog should be coming almost every time you call. At this point I introduce a correction if its needed. Dog is on a long line and facing away from you, call the dog if the dog doesn't come, pick up the long line, give a correction and drop the long line on the ground. Remind the dog to come and run away from the dog. Once the dog has sat in front of you, reward and send it back out to sniff. If you have to do more then one or two corrections then go back to step #1 and start over, you went to fast.

Next step is getting off leash. Put your regular long line on the dog, and a light weight one that also has a light clip. Make a big deal of un-clipping the regular one. As you are un-clipping it, drop a few treats on the ground, put out a tug toy and run away from your dog. As the dog starts to come to you, give the command, lure the sit in front and then reward with a good game of tug. Out your dog of the tug, clip the long line back on. Walk around for a minute, un-clip, drop a few treats and run away again. Repeat several times over several days or more. You want the un-clipping to become a cue that great fun is about to come from mom! 

Once your dog is looking to you when it hears the clip of the regular long line/leash go to the next step. Un-clip your dog and send them off to sniff stuff (in a low distraction environment, with the light long line on). Do the very first step (where you lure with a treat while they are distracted) a few times. Then try calling your dog without the lure. If your dog comes throw a giant party. If the dog does not come you can either give a correction via the light long line (remember to drop it before your dog turns its head) or take a few steps back.

Don't call your dog to leave the park, go into the crate, get a bath or anything not fun. Go and get your dog for any of that. This is when a down stay is good to have. If your dog is off leash running around, but you want to leave without spoiling the come command, put your dog in a down and go get him (giving a few treats when you get there).


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## Melgrj7 (Jul 5, 2009)

I forgot to add, don't forget to slowly increase distractions at each step as well. Don't jump from an empty park to trying it when there are 20 people and off leash dogs running around.


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## BuoyantDog (Aug 21, 2009)

Thanks, Melgrj7! I am soaking this in... 3K9Mom......."recall" will be my SECRET (100%) WEAPON, as "come" will always be there for everyone else when they're visiting with Glory. Good idea??


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## mspiker03 (Dec 7, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: 3K9MomBuoyant, if you have kids or family members who aren't consistent (they won't go GET the dog when she doesn't come, for example), don't tell them about the new word/training. They can keep using "come."
> 
> Then YOU have a command that's 100%, which they can't ruin for you.


Or Husbands


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

I try to imprint the come with restrained recalls. This imprints and conditions this exercise to be one where your dog bursts into drive and races to you. You will need to be in a safe, boring, confined area and have some to help restrain your dog. I had in the past, dogs who didn't always come very well, so determined to work on making this a high priority skill. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OhKDWWiJ90

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMw3RdrFxQ


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## TNGSD (Feb 15, 2008)

Here is a video of Haley doing a restrained recall from this week! She is making progress!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQZ1y71Z_S4


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

Oh, that was a good one!! I love the recall this creates and well, the dogs obviously love the game too!


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## TNGSD (Feb 15, 2008)

Thanks. He is a lot of dog for a little girl but she has stuck with it and is going for a BH this spring! I love to watch their recalls!


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## Samba (Apr 23, 2001)

She is really cool handling that dog!! Wish my kids had been interested. I thought your video showed the recall really well too.


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