Retraining "Come"

[moosikins]

Callie's a very good girl, but we've spoiled her over the last few months and it shows. She's decided that "come" is optional now, although she's doing really well with some other commands that we use consistently like "Off" (the couch, bed, etc.), "Leave it", and "Go to sleep" for going into the bedroom at night. I've read through previous threads on the subject and here's the plan so far...Long lead inside the house to haul her back to us when she decides not to listen. We've stopped trying the command until we have an action plan because she's not hooked up to a lead in the house normally and I think we were just teaching her that there are no consequences for deliberately not listening. The bratty thing tweaks an ear when we call her to come and even looks at us like "Nope!" before trotting off or just going back to her playing! Strangely enough, she's pretty good about it outside, though usually we'll have to do "watch me" first to make eye contact or she doesn't seem to think we're serious.

 

Are there any additional suggestions or strategies you've tried that worked out really well with an intelligent, but somewhat sensitive dog? Are there any other commands we should work on with her that are useful and/or fun? She tends to do really well with learning or relearning multiple commands at once because of the variety and picks everything up quicker when we're not pushing just one thing all the time. We're already working on "touch" (nose touch to hand).

 

Thanks in advance for your recommendations and feedback!

~Moosikins

 

P.S. - She's been such a snuggle bug lately! Photo attached because of cuteness.

 

 

[CptJack]

My only additional suggestion is that if she has successfully gotten away with not coming when you tell her 'come' to find a new command word that hasn't been burned.

 

Other commands kind of depend on what she knows and in what circumstances and your life to be honest.

 

My most USEFUL 'nontraditional' commands with my dogs are 'leash' (jump up on me so I can easily attach and/or grab your leash) and 'Bye!" which is basically just warning that their butts are about to be left and they need to catch up. Not a recall that one, more a 'stop lagging behind'.Other than those "Wait" (at doors, street crossing, before taking a tug, etc) is used daily. "Take it" and "Out" for tug. Stay. I LOVE stay. Stay is my best friend.

 

For fun? Spin, twirl, (circling opposite directions) leg weaves, roll over, paw and other paw, bow, sit pretty/beg, closing doors is pretty easy, putting toys away in a box, the names of things/people, 'Find it' type games - It's kind of endless.

[Root Beer]

Whiplash turns, whiplash turns, whiplash turns. Inside, outside, criteria low enough for success, reinforcer high enough to make the point.

 

I'd try to practice about 10 a day, inside and outside.

[moosikins]

@CptJack - I love "sit pretty", it's one of the first we taught her right after "sit". She's still really good and we're steadily making it prettier, haha! How do you teach them to close a door? We're also working on the foundations for putting toys away, "take it" and "drop it". Unfortunately, we didn't have a good enough differentiation between "stay" and "wait" and she pretty much always ignored "stay" so we use "wait" as a stay. According to the behaviorist, if it works, it works. The advantage is that she waits indefinitely for her release command "Okay go" so it functions as a stay.

 

@Rootbeer - How do you teach and reward whiplash turns? Also, what would the command be? She does them when she gets the zoomies, but there's no way to control or reward them as far as I can see because she's just running around like a lunatic getting her energy out.

[CptJack]

Teaching to close a door really just means teaching a paw or nose target and transferring it onto the door. I tend to have them target a post it note then put the note on the door, then eventually remove the physical target (the post it note). It's fun and looks impressive, but it's pretty easy.

 

You're trainer's right, if it works it works. I have different criteria for stay, but as long as the dog is doing what you want when you tell her what to do it works.

 

Whiplash turns are a control unleashed exercise. You start with the dog facing away from you, call its name or use a command, when it looks back over it's shoulder, treat. Then you build distance from you and ask the dog to do more than turn but come. Basically it's one part recall, one part orientation. It's a lot of fun. Rootbeer can probably give you a more detailed description.

[GentleLake]

Sounds like you've poisoned the cue (i.e. "come" no longer means what you want it to mean) and should choose a new one. Maybe "here"?

[moosikins]

@GentleLake - Good idea. I just looked up a list of alternate commands to "come". "Here" seems to be the next best thing. I wonder if we could retrain "come" after "here" is mastered to mean something entirely different like come and jump into my arms (like those really awesome trick dog videos on Youtube). Thoughts?

 

On that note - check out Nana the Border Collie on Youtube. Amazing dog and completely clicker trained!

 

@CptJack - Thanks! I can't wait to try the target. It'll hopefully be easy for her to learn because of the "touch" command she already knows. Do you start by calling the target "Get the door"? Or do you give a generic command that you then morph into the door command? It would be so useful to ask her to close the door when I have my hands full with a baby next summer. Hehe, I'm giddy just thinking about how cool it would be if she could learn that!

[ourwully]

I am at the same point with my Juno and here's what I am doing.

 

In the house I only call her 3 times a day but she gets rewarded with a very small bit of real beef broken apart and fed to her over the course of 30 seconds. When I call her for this I use the word here. I got this idea from a video I bought called Reliable Recall. I started slow and carefully with this one but now after a month she has never failed once. If I say here she will appear instantly. I am now starting to use this when I want her to come in from the back yard. I get her attention first so that I know she won't fail and then I say here.So far no failures. The idea here is to keep building the strength of the recall and then save it for emergencies.

 

The second thing I have been doing is recording my recalls. I walk Juno twice a day in the woods and I leave her on a thin long line I got at the dollar shop for $1.50. I cut the loop off at the end so it won't catch and I am confident that if it did catch the clasp would break if she did somehow catch the line. When out I use "Juno Come" at least 10 times so that is 20 recalls at least in the day. Again I try to make sure she is listening before I call and I call with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is so very important! I have been doing this for two weeks now and her recall is usually 100% but on a few days she has missed a couple and these are usually my fault because I haven't noticed she was smelling something really nice. On the occasions she missed I retrieve her which is easier with the long line. So far I have been able to get her every time. This week, so far in 5 sessions I she has come 55 out of 56 attempts. I know I am probably sounding very anal here but before I started counting I just put in a few recalls and in all seriousness I wasn't doing near enough to be effective.

 

The third thing I do on our walks is do 2 recalls on a whistle. Like the 'here' command I use a special treat (a quarter of a chicken hot dog) fed over 30 seconds so that she knows when the whistle blows she comes and gets a special treat.

I count these as well and so far this week she is 10 for 10. Last week, however, I was using 3 whistles per walk and she missed a couple. I wasn't happy about that is because I was building the whistle command also as an emergency command and I really wanted it to be failure proof. Even though I have been building this command for months now I am not convinced it is ready yet. This is where the counting comes in to make sure I am doing it regularly.

 

The fourth thing I do is a 'by me' command' where I call her when I am walking and I just say "by me" or pat my hand on my hip. I don't count this and I give Juno a lot of lee way here. As long as she keeps in sight I am okay with that. Most times she comes right up to my hip and I give her a piece of kibble.

 

In case you get the idea that our walks are all training, that is not the case. Most of the time Juno is free to fly through the woods, to play with her other dog friends if they are around, and to play fetch. I am just taking the recall command very seriously because it seems to be the command that solves almost all problems. With Juno, her two biggest issues are getting excited in a friendly way when she meets new people and barking at squirrels in the yard. With the barking I just recall her inside to the relief of the neighbours. The excitement issue is a more serious issue because she is like a rabbit and will jump on people very high and very fast. She is like a projectile. Right now I rely on a combination of the recall and the long line to prevent this from happening. If I see a person before her then I will recall her but if she has already seen the person I don't recall, I just grab the long line. I don't want to take the chance of her injuring someone and the consequences that might entail.

 

 

 

Hope this is of some value and thanks to all the people on this forum who gave me these ideas in the first place.

Cheers

Bill

[moosikins]

@ourwully - I don't think I understand the differences in your commands. What situation do you use each command in? (Sorry, I'm having a dense kind of day...Just stared at the girl getting me tea for a full 60 seconds before realizing she was waiting for my employee ID number to charge me...)

 

Sounds like your dog has a blast with training and walks - so many opportunities to please you! I wish Callie had that much room to run. We'd probably be way better with our recalls if we had to get her back from the woods!

[CptJack]

@CptJack - Thanks! I can't wait to try the target. It'll hopefully be easy for her to learn because of the "touch" command she already knows. Do you start by calling the target "Get the door"? Or do you give a generic command that you then morph into the door command? It would be so useful to ask her to close the door when I have my hands full with a baby next summer. Hehe, I'm giddy just thinking about how cool it would be if she could learn that!

 

I start with teaching them to target the post-it and I don't actually use a verbal cue for that at all, just sort of half free-shape half lure to teach it. I add a verbal for 'close the door' (I use door) once I start making the target on the door smaller/removing it. Before that it's just the action and reward.

[Root Beer]

To train whiplash turns, you want to set up a disengagement, and - to start - you want to do these when your dog is calm.

 

Toss a treat on the floor, use the whiplash word, jackpot when the dog turns back to you. Rinse, repeat, over and over. Vary the distance. Toss the treat into a room and leave and call, etc. Make it super easy so your dog is conditioned to running to you when she hears the word.

 

Outside you can do these on leash at first, and off when you are building fluency, and the reinforcer can be permission to go back to sniffing, or you can reinforce with toy play. Often food isn't high enough value outside, but for some dogs it can be.

 

As for word . . . I usually use the dog's name, but I also use recall words. One of my is "return", and I only use "return" as a recall word in situations where I want a recall right away. So, if I call "Tess-sa!", she might turn and look at me. After all, I do often use her name just to get her attention - it's not always a recall. But if I call "Tessa, Return!" I want her to run to me. I work whiplashes off of both.

 

This is the mainstay of my recall training. I rarely do much beyond the foundation other than to use it in the yard from time to time. You want to build it to the point where if she is running around crazy, and you call the whiplash word, she will run to you before she even realizes what she is doing.

 

The other day Bandit called immediately off a running rabbit in the yard on just his name, and I had no reinforcer on me!! It works!!

[ourwully]

@ourwully - I don't think I understand the differences in your commands. What situation do you use each command in?

I use the 'by me' command just to keep her close to me and to keep her engaged. The 'Juno Come' command is my main recall command that I use at all times. The whistle and 'here' commands are being built up for that day when failure to come will be disastrous. Even though I have been training the whistle command for months now I have never used it at a time of need. The whistle and here commands are basically the same. They are both emergency commands with the 'here' command being saved for the most dire of emergencies. For example, if Juno was running toward a child, the whistle might be used, whereas, if she was about to run onto a busy road I would use the here command. Eventually, when they become 100% I might use them in other situations.

 

I worked it out that I have about 5 or 6 recall commands with varying degrees of desired reliability.

 

1. Here - to be used only in severe emergencies

2.Whistle -to be used in situations where it is imperative that she come immediately. As she gets older I will probably use this command more often for times where she is further away from me

3. Juno, Come -every day command that means come immediately

4. Come hand signal -same as above

5. By me and or pat on the hip- finish what you are doing and lets go -stay close

6. Let's go - same as above

7. C'mon - same as above

 

Hope this helps

Bill

[moosikins]

Oh, those do make sense by situation. I really like "By me". I think I'll incorporate that one once we master "Here" as a "Come" replacement...It's neat that Juno can understand that you're allowing him to join you momentarily instead of immediately based on the command. Hopefully Callie will be able to distinguish as well (any tips on how to make it clearer would be appreciated).

 

Callie does understand "Let's go" but we use it to ask her to hurry up and choose a potty spot when we're only doing a quick break instead of a walk. She'll usually give another sniff or two and just go. It wasn't really trained but rather something she appears to have learned from us saying it frequently.

[ourwully]

Hopefully Callie will be able to distinguish as well (any tips on how to make it clearer would be appreciated).

I have been given so much advice on this forum that I have forgotten who gave me this excellent advice, but they suggested that training in the course of your regular daily routine, rather than as a specific training session, is very effective. With this in mind I started the 'by me' training on our walks by just calling her every once and a while with the 'by me" command or by patting my hip. When she came by I would give her a treat from my hand without her sitting or stopping. I just use kibble but she still likes to just check in even if its only for a little kibble. When my wife walks with us she just puts her hand down at her side with a bit of kibble and Juno flies by her and grabs the kibble like she is passing a baton. It kind of works in the same way where she is always checking in and as a consequence staying fairly close.

 

My last dog was a wonderful Husky named Seth. When he was a young puppy he would follow me everywhere but it didn't take him long to start going his own way. Eventually, I could never let him off leash because he wouldn't come back when called and you could never tell how far he would stray. Juno is the exact opposite. With every passing day she seems to be more attached to me and doesn't let me out of her sight. On the times she doesn't come it isn't defiance as much as I didn't hear you the first time, I was busy with this wonderful scent.

 

cheers

Bill

[diane allen]

You've gotten lots of good ideas for other tricks!

But if I were you, I'd be working on whatever word you're going to use for "Come" more than anything else.

 

I highly recommend the DVD "Really Reliable Recall" by Leslie Nelson. She trained sighthounds to 'come' - at least as hard as Huskies! LOL! It is available on Amazon, or from Clean Run. I have a huge stack of DVDs for various training topics - but this is by far the very best one I know.

 

BTW, how old is Callie? I had a teenage boy dog, with whom I did alllllll the recommended things, who at about 7-8 months decided I was NOT the best thing in the world. Ack!!! I thought I had failed him miserably. But it was a passing thing. His recall now is superb! And another BTW, I made a very high pitched (I realize that for a "Bill" this might be harder!) sound - sort of based on "Pupper!" that is our "you are simply too far away and you need to get back within 10' right this very second" call. It carries over open ground well, and it's so funny, it's hard to sound mad or mean. Works for us! YMMV....

 

diane

[D'Elle]

You have good advice already, but here's my addition.

I have put very solid recalls on my small dogs off leash outside by using a loud high pitched plastic whistle. Starting indoors, then on leash, building up slowly, of course. Whistle means treat. Now all I have to do is whistle and they come running from wherever they are, even if in pursuit of rabbit or lizard. To them, whistle doesn't really mean a "come" command....rather it means "Oh boy, treats are being handed out and I better get there as fast as I can". I did not train things that way with my border collies, who are a lot older, but there's no reason it wouldn't work just as well with any dog.

 

ETA: I always, always treat them when they come to the whistle. That way, if I need to use the whistle to get them to come and do not have a treat, it won't matter, because 99% of the time I do.

I also treat them for coming to "check in" with me, which keeps them nearby and makes it easier to keep track of them.

[moosikins]

Awesome suggestions and advice, thank you everyone! I will be working on "Here" first, although my husband is leaning towards seeing if we can retrain "Come" first. We may give it a week or so to see if we can make some progress before moving on to "Here". But like GentleLake said, I also suspect we ruined that command, at least for now.

 

Callie is about 9.5 months old. Her birthday was given to us as May 1st, but they're not quite sure since she came in as a litter of 13 pups with Mama Dog and they were all coded as "Abandoned" by the County Kennel who transferred them all to the APL.

 

P.S. - Did I mention that we found her brother nearby? The APL sent out a message to everyone who adopted one of the pups and Mama Dog with my e-mail provided and a couple who lives 15 minutes away have her brother and want to get together. We've been sharing training tips and apparently, he also shares some of the same behavioral difficulties that we have been addressing with Callie like guarding! We can't wait to get them together in the near future - I'll be bringing my nice camera so I'm sure I'll have photos to post!

[Root Beer]

FWIW, I have had success retraining "ruined" cues. As long as the cue isn't actually aversive to the dog, it can be done, and I've found it can be done relatively simply.

 

The key really is to stop using the cue in circumstances where the dog won't know 100% what it means. I would take "come" back to whiplashes - toss treats close, use a high rate of reinforcement to jackpot them.

 

I have found that dogs can absolutely attach new meaning to words, especially words that they previously ignored.

 

I realized at one point that Bandit was answering to "Puppy" as his name, and he was ignoring "Bandit"!! I stopped calling him "Puppy" and started calling him "Bandit" exclusively, and within days he recognized it as his name.

 

So, if your husband wants to retrain "come", I'd say it ought to be able to be done. It can be tougher if the dog makes an aversive association with the word, or if the word triggers an extreme response, or if the dog already has a strong association with that word and another behavior. But if he just isn't recalling off of "come", I would expect you could charge it up, and in pretty short order.

[moosikins]

There's no negative association with "Come". We just kind of stopped reinforcing it when she didn't do it, so now she thinks it's totally optional.

 

Callie answers to "Callie", "Cal", "Calypso", and "Callikins" interchangeably. Although she does know that we use only "Callie" for training and "Calypso" when she's in a lot of trouble!

[Root Beer]

So, in place of "optional" build "highly reinforcing". High reinforcement can be faded once the association is strong.