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Are You Sabotaging Your Puppy’s Recall?

Dog Breeding

In my last blog post I explained a simple process that you can implement to teach your puppy to come. Dog trainers refer to the “come” command as a recall. Teaching a recall to a puppy is quite simple. The real challenge is keeping his recall strong under any circumstances!

The puppy in the photo is Brew. She was across a field about 100 yards away, that is about the length of a football field. I blew a whistle and she came flying to me with purpose – to get whatever wonderful thing I had for her.

I did not show her what she would get when she arrived, she just knew if she heard that whistle GREAT things would happen! At the time she was just eight weeks old and EVERY TIME she heard a whistle in those first weeks of her life wonderful things happened!

This kind of learning is called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is where an animal learns to make an association between two stimuli. When the first stimulus naturally prompts a behavior in an animal you can pair that with a second stimulus that would not have prompted the same behavior. With enough frequency the second stimulus (the one that did not naturally prompt the behavior) will prompt the behavior in the same way the first stimulus did.

Ivan Pavlov illustrated classical conditioning through his experiments with dogs. When food (first stimulus) was presented to a dog, the dog naturally salivated. After repeatedly pairing the sound of a bell (second stimulus) with the food when it was presented, the dog salivated upon hearing the sound of the bell even in the absence of food. Although the bell initially meant nothing to the dog, it began associating the bell with food.

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So let’s look at how this kind of learning applies to your puppy’s recall. Some of the typical recall cues people use are “come,” “here,” the sound of a whistle or even a blinking light which might be used for a deaf dog. Any of the above-mentioned stimuli/cues could be what you condition your dog to respond to – just like “hearing the bell” in Pavlov’s experiment. So what you do after you recall cue will dictate what your dog’s response will be. When you are teaching your puppy to come you give your cue. I say “here” then give him something he likes. When you begin the conditioning your puppy only has to hear the sound, they do not have to respond in any way! SOUND = TREAT! You are not asking for any behavior. The puppy learns to expect something wonderful when he hears the sound. What happens if after you make the sound your puppy gets something it does NOT like? You will very quickly destroy your puppy’s recall! Puppies are smart – they are learning all the time. Your job is to get them to learn the lessons you want to teach!

So what might sabotaging your recall look like?

Here are a some examples: Your puppy is out in the yard. It’s 7:15 a.m., he has eaten breakfast and is allowed some time to roam, explore and just have a good time. You have to catch your regular train to work at 7:53. At about 7:30 and you need to leave so you call your puppy and he happily comes running to you. You give him a treat and put him in his crate. You follow this same routine every morning and all of a sudden your puppy won’t come when you call. Why? You have paired coming with being put up. Because of the hour he can knows what follows the cookie after you call him. It won’t matter how good the cookie is – he will learn not to come when you call him in the morning because he can predict you will put him in a pen or crate and leave.

Here’s another…. you are lucky enough to have a safe place that you can take your puppy for a walk in the woods. You take the puppy into the woods and encourage them to explore and have a wonderful time just being a dog! As you make your way back to the car you begin to get ready to go home. That means you have to get your puppy and put him in his crate. You call your puppy and the first few times he comes running! After only a few trips to the woods your puppy – who has an amazing recall – won’t come when you call him! Why? You are standing near the car and he has learned that if you call him while you are near the car the fun is going to stop.

So how can you avoid these pitfalls?

In both cases mentioned above you are being completely predictable. The puppy has learned what you are going to do under specific circumstances. In the case of the person catching a train every morning – what is clear to the dog is at that time of day when he comes to you all fun stops, and for a long time! In order to prevent that from happening you need to be unpredictable! So before you head to work, let your puppy play in the yard, call him to you, give him a wonderful treat and send him back out to play. Sometimes you should bring him into the house and give another treat and then send him back out to play. You want to be as unpredictable as possible with the puppy…. keep him guessing!

Where the puppy learns that the fun in the woods stops when you are near your car you will do very much the same thing. Call him to you, give a great treat and release him back out to run in the woods. Follow him into the woods and then call him again. When he comes reward him again and send him back out. Move to and from the car as you are doing this. He will have no idea when you are going to leave – unless your body language tells him. When you decide it is time for you to go home just call him to you and take control of him and put him on leash and then head to the car. If you have created a pattern in your behavior your dog will figure it out. Be smarter than your dog – keep him wondering what will happen next and maintain his amazing recall!

2 Comments

  1. pat swallows
    pat swallows on April 19, 2014 at 9:15 am

    Great ideas. Can we share this with our puppy buyers if we give you credit?

  2. Marcy Burke
    Marcy Burke on April 19, 2014 at 9:34 am

    Pat,

    We would love breeders to not only share this blog post, but to recommend Avidog as a resource to their puppy buyers! Our crate training course is being launched next week and our potty training course is already helping people housebreak their pups. Lots of other great stuff in the works! We also have an affiliate program where breeders can choose to get a percentage back to them, offer it as a discount to their buyers or donate it to the Morris Animal Foundation or the AKC Canine Health Foundation.

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