Drop on recall

[haleigh]

When I got Joy, I really wanted to start competitve obedience. Considering all of her behavioral problems, its not in the near future. That doesn't mean I still don't practice at home. She has a beautiful heel, competition quality sit, and we're working on retrieving.

 

We have a few people at our old dog park who have competition dogs, who have a UDX. So when I practice my obedience there under their presence, I get a lot of constructive criticism. I was messing around with them and telling them how they should see her drop on recall, knowing she didn't know it. I was honestly just kidding, but when I told her to down , she (heh) "dropped like a border collie"

 

This wasn't anything I trained at all, but I was wondering if you train the down good enough, the dog starts to 'generalize'. Would a drop on recall be something that herding dogs do better at then the average house pet, because of all the running-stand still-running movement involved with herding?

 

Since my miraculous discovery, I've been working the drop on recall with a visual aid. I really found this article helpful

http://www.basset.net/kay12.html

[Northof49]

I have never taught a dog the "drop on recall" exercise for competitive obedience. I only teach by dogs that when I say lie down they drop where they are, which I suppose comes from my stock work with my dogs. Down is down no matter what you are doing or where you are. If you are running towards me put on the breaks and lie down!!!

 

If I have any people working with me for competitive obedience, this is what I teach their dogs as well. Down is down is down. I do have specific exercises for this, and it doesn't take the dogs very long to understand that when they are told to down, they do it immediately. It's all done with positive training.

[Tassie]

Yep - I'd agree that having a great down is a really good thing to have - and it's great to practise it randomly.

 

One thing to be careful of if you see competitive obedience in Joy's future, is to make sure you just to the distant drops in a random environment, rather than in the context of a formal recall. Keep the formal recall practice just flat recalls, concentrating on speed and accuracy. If you start throwing drops into the formal recall, you may find your clever ltitle Border Collie anticipating that you will ask for a drop, and either slowing down, or giving it to you anyway.

[Devi]

I did not have to teach this to my dog, either. I just asked for a down in the middle of an informal recall from some distance one day and he was fine with it. He actually seems to enjoy this "drop like a border collie" exercise and has never refused to "down" on the way back when I ask.

[Pat W.]

Whim has always given me a natural drop on recall, never trained it, but I did train a drop, my down command is "table" as we are in training for agility but he also knows lie down for on sheep too

[haleigh]

Hmm...great thing it is, to be surrounded by people who know what they're talking about I was starting to wonder how come her recall was slowing down, not realizing she was anticipating the down LOL!

[Root Beer]

One thing I found helpful to teach this was a baited target. When Speedy stopped to eat the treat on the target, I cued the down and he seemed to understand not to creep forward. Eventually I just took the target away and he understood. He still does this nicely even though we haven't done Rally in some time.

 

Dean does a backwards drop on recall. He backs away from me - back, back, back, down! Then he can continue going back on cue from the down and then will sit on cue.

 

I haven't taught it to him forwards yet.