Further Questions about Recall (Beware - Long Thread!)

[Tiga's_mom]

Oh by the way, does it matter what the recall word is if you're only teaching one at a time? I agree with Barb that there should be different types of recall. Right now, I want to work up to him coming to me with distractions when outside. I've been kind of inconsistant with the command. I'm thinking I'll start with "Tiga here".

[Odin's Momma]

I have no idea about the different commands, Tammy. I'm interested in hearing a reply to your question though

 

Progress with Odin today has been good! I woke up at 5:30am and it's 12:30pm now. On and off during the morning I've called him to me about 12 times. Well over half of these, I woke him up during a nap but he still ambled over.

 

I'm going to keep working on it for the rest of the day.

 

One thing I'm unsure of is when I should tone down the praise. Right now I'm "throwing a party" as Miz likes to put it I know It has to be tapered, but how long should I keep up with the level of praise I'm giving now before toning it down?

[Miztiki]

Originally posted by Tiga's_mom:

Oh by the way, does it matter what the recall word is if you're only teaching one at a time?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

 

Dogs don't understand the English language (or any language), so the word(s) you choose is not what matters. What matters is that you are consistent - with the word and the tone, and also consistent in the result. If "come here" means come close enough to touch, then don't let coming within 10 feet be ok sometimes while out on a hike in the woods.

[Miztiki]

Kee, it depends. When you called Odin today, did he *immediately* respond? Did he come to you the way you want him to? Does coming mean sitting in front of you, or within touching distance, or within the general vicinity?

 

When Odin is consistently coming to you immediately and in the way you want him to, then you can start toning it down.

 

When you start toning it down, make it variable. Tone it down a little one time, then throw a party the next time, then tone it down a few times, then throw a party two times in a row. Mix it all up so that you're always peaking his interest. At first you'll want to throw a party more often than not. As time goes by, you can throw less and less parties. Don't make it predictable though. Don't throw a party every second time, then every third, then every fourth, etc. Keep him guessing.

 

Vary your rewards too. Sometimes it can be lots of praise and petting and dancing around. Sometimes it can be treats, or even his meal. Sometimes it can be a ride in the car, or a game of fetch, or whatever Odin loves.

 

The reason is that eventually Odin will be tempted by some major distractions, perhaps a cat running by, or another dog, or whatever is highly distracting to him.

 

If you only use one type of reward then he will compare the value of that reward to the value of whatever is distracting him. If you reward him with many things then the possiblility of getting one of those things is pretty persuasive.

 

I let Boy and Fynne out this morning with Fynne on leash so that Boy wouldn't be tempted to run. I don't want pain to discourage him from coming when I call. When it was time for them to come inside I went to Boy and indicated that I wanted him to follow me. I didn't want to call him to me. I didn't know if he would follow or not but he did, so that's good. Normally I would just grab his collar and lead him to the house, but I'd like to avoid doing that now that I know about his neck problems. I wouldn't pull hard or anything, but if he hurts then he might not want my hand anywhere near his neck.

 

Anyway, did my answer help?

[Tiga's_mom]

I guess what I meant was, because Barb mentioned that she has several different commands for different recalls, does it matter which is used for each different purpose. But you answered my question, and I should have figured that out on my own, but I wasn't fully awake when I asked that either.

[Miztiki]

I have other ways of calling mine to me. "Come here" means come here to me, within reaching distance. "C'mon" or "let's go" is for when we are walking in a large area, like the woods, and I want them to come in the vicinity, or follow me.

 

I won't be fully awake for a while yet, so don't worry!

[Odin's Momma]

Originally posted by Miztiki:

 

Kee, it depends. When you called Odin today, did he *immediately* respond? Did he come to you the way you want him to? Does coming mean sitting in front of you, or within touching distance, or within the general vicinity?

I would say yes, but I guess it depends on what you define as immediately. The times that I called him and he was napping at the time, he got up slower than normal and stretched on the way, but I thought that way okay. I don't really expect him to jump up and be energized right away. He comes right up to me when I call him, definitely within touching distance, just the way I want him too

 

When Odin is consistently coming to you immediately and in the way you want him to, then you can start toning it down.

 

When you start toning it down, make it variable. Tone it down a little one time, then throw a party the next time, then tone it down a few times, then throw a party two times in a row. Mix it all up so that you're always peaking his interest.

 

Vary your rewards too. Sometimes it can be lots of praise and petting and dancing around. Sometimes it can be treats, or even his meal. Sometimes it can be a ride in the car, or a game of fetch, or whatever Odin loves.

 

The reason is that eventually Odin will be tempted by some major distractions, perhaps a cat running by, or another dog, or whatever is highly distracting to him.

 

If you only use one type of reward then he will compare the value of that reward to the value of whatever is distracting him. If you reward him with many things then the possiblility of getting one of those things is pretty persuasive.

 

Anyway, did my answer help?

 

YES! TONS!

 

This gave me a much better understanding of rewarding! Thanks for being so thorough! Oh, and I have been giving him treats as well as praise, but not every time.

[Tiga's_mom]

Yeah I started thinking about it and I guess I have more then one command for him to come to me. There's a church by our house that's really seccluded during the week and so we take him there sometimes and let him off leash to run. I use "this way" for him to follow us, or "lets go" if he's distracted sniffing something. Occasionaly he doesn't want to come back when it's time to go back on the lease before we start the walk home, but he always does, it's just sometimes he has to be bribed, and I don't want it to be like that.

 

Well so far today Tiga is 5 for 5. He thinks I'm a nut I'm sure, I've been getting some strange looks from him for being called over for nothing. But he is coming, right away within touching distance so far every time. I'm here all day long by myself, so I'm trying to break it up throughout the day before people start coming home from work.

[Miztiki]

Kee, at first you want to reward him coming to you in any way, shape, or form. This is the teaching phase so that he knows what calling him means.

 

Once he is coming to you consistently then you can start demanding a quicker response, or coming closer.

 

Would Odin take the time to stretch if some other thing he loves was presented to him? Like a squirrel, or food, or something like that? If not then tomorrow you might want to start rewarding him only when he immediately comes to you. To encourage that, use the highest value reward possible. I wouldn't start today yet because you really want to build a good, strong foundation before adding rules and criteria.

 

Hubby just called. He wants us to go tromp around in the woods with the dogs this weekend, and maybe even go camping. Yay! My ankle can't handle unruly dogs, so this is good incentive to work really hard with both of them.

[Odin's Momma]

Alrighty, thanks for the extra advice Miz!

 

Oh, and he for sure knows already what "come" means I'll just have to work on the quicker part

[Jenalyn]

I'm glad you made this thread, Kee! I'd been wondering the same thing I've read over the recall posts as well, but this one adds a lot more useful detail to the already great advice in other threads

 

Chili's never had a reliable recall and I never really thought I could teach her one (she's very good at "selective listening"), but this post is getting me inspired! I think I'll start the "program" too

 

A dog with a 100% bomb-proof recall... now that would be nice.

[Meg's mum]

As soon as we're done with Meg's 3 week boot camp I'll put her through the tests and start the program from wherever she falls. Thanks for the support folks. Thanks from Meg and Dave the DH and Sox the cat.

[Miztiki]

I'm only practicing with Fynne today. Boy got a bit too active today so I'd like for him to take it easy.

 

Look what you've started Kee! I wonder how many other people have joined us? It sounds like Tiga's got it going on!

[Tiga's_mom]

Tiga is at 13 for 13 so far today. Sometimes he's a bit slow coming, but he always comes. Even when there's been some distractions. Once he was playing with a toy. I've also tried with me in a different room in the house and so far so good.

[Tiga's_mom]

At the end of the day yesterday, Tiga made it to 15/15. Do I start from 16 today? Or go back to 1? It's pretty early for most of you so I don't expect an answer for a few hours. I'm up early today, plus I'm on Atlantic time. I'll just keep a tally for now.

[Odin's Momma]

Alright, yesterday Odin did about 20/20 from 5:30am to 3:30pm.

 

Then dh came home from work (hes on day shift now, YAY!) And we played that came for about 5 minutes. Odin came to both of us each time we called.

 

At 4pm we went for what is now our "Usual" walk, even though we've only done it twice LOL! We just love it and we plan to go there as often as we can When we got to the secluded clearing, I told dh that Odin could not go off leash because I didn't want to set back his training. He wore me down though, so off came the leash.

 

The good news with that, is there were alot of distractions: birds, squirrels, even people walking by about 30 feet away. Each time he ran to far I yelled "come" and he came right up to me within touching distance. Then a man with a German Shepherd came by. Odin started running, but turned around IMMEDIATELY when he heard "come". I leashed him until they were out of sight and then I tried to get him to take interest in his frisby. No luck there, lol.

 

All in all about 10 people passed by, some passed by several times, Odin noticed each of them, ran towards a few, but always came back when called. We were up on a little hill, they were down below behind an 8 feet tall wire fence. Except the guy with the GSD, he was on our side of the fence. Oh and there's a hole in the fence further on down it, but not close to where we are at all.

 

On the way back, on the trail, with Odin back on his leash, we encountered 5 or 6 boys who looked to be about 14-15. They were all on bikes and doing jumps and going over ramps and stuff like that. The terrain there had been dug out and built up just for this purpose. Odin had seen bikes before, but not really like this, so I was curious. Well, I even tried to turn him towards them to look, but he just wasn't interested! He just wanted to keep walking and sniffing. I guess that's a good thing.

 

When we got back to regular park area, we encountered rollerbladers! Again, he wasn't interested

 

A little bit further on we came to a set of swings where my 17 yr old brother in law and his friends were (for reason unknown) swinging. Odin tried to chase them, so that's something I've got to work on as well.

 

As we kept walking by a few minutes later, we see the kids that he had met the day before, except there were more of them. The pics in the gallery show how well that went. The previous day I hadn't felt comfortale letting go of the leash right next to his jaw. Yesterday, as long as I was paying close attention to him and the children, I could hold onto the lead loosely. Yay!!

 

Then it was off to the inlaw's to play with Ziggy. While they were romping around, I called him to me several times. He came over to me (within touching distance) every single time, even when he was in full play mode with his "cousin".

 

We finally got home at 8:10pm. Odin had a nice day, I think, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself . . . I called him to me a few moer times and he did. Everything was well, until about an hour later when I called him to me and he just layed there. Didn't quite know what to do so I went over, picked him up (no easy feat, I tell ya) and brought him over to the couch with me. He was quite content to just lay there, he was quite beat I think.

 

Anyway, all but for one incident, I had a great day, and so did Odin. This morning so far, he's done 5/5.

[Tiga's_mom]

Awesome progress Kee! Tiga's doing well so far today, we're also at about 5/5.

[Odin's Momma]

Thanks Tammy! I was worried that taking him off leash would ruin my progress, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything.

 

I'm glad Tiga is doing well!

 

Oh, and I posted some pics from yesterday, here:

 

http://www.bordercollie.org/cgi-bin/ultima...t=001864#000001

[Tiga's_mom]

I'm glad it didn't hurt his progress at all. In fact, it seems to have assured you that you are well on your way! I'm not going to test Tiga too soon. The church parking lot is ok for him to be off lease because it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere and no one really goes there except on Sunday's. But he's starting to get more excited to come to me when I call him. I've been doing random treats and random amounts of excitment. I was napping for a while but we're both awake again now and time to start again for the day.

 

Great pics too by the way!

[Tiga's_mom]

Well yesterday I had a bad day, so I didn't do as much with Tiga as the day before but at the end of the day he was at 9/9. So far today he is sort of at 9/9. One time he was at the complete opposite end of the house and I'm not sure what he was doing but he came into the room I was in right away but not close enough to touch me. He's a little slow sometimes if I call him when he's napping, but he comes every time. So all together it's been 33/33 unless it doesn't count when he just came into the room in which case it's 32/33. I'll keep doing it throughout the day. Am I ready to move on with him?

[Miztiki]

Sorry I haven't been too active lately.

 

Are you ready to move on? Only you can judge that.

 

When teaching the recall, you want to keep the following in mind.

 

You want your dog to associate "come here" with GREAT and WONDERFUL THINGS. If it's only a pretty cool thing, or a somewhat neat thing, then it won't be effective in the face of a big distraction that the dog considers a greater and wonderfuller thing.

 

You want to practice it enough times so that it becomes a HABIT, a conditioned response, an ingrained behavior, an automatic thing that's done without even thinking.

 

If at any time your dog does not come to you, it will show your dog that it has a choice, and it will make it that much harder to make the recall response 100% reliable.

 

If you feel that Tiga fits the criteria above then yeah, move up to the next level. If not, then throw a bigger party or practice some more, or both.

 

IMO, when first teaching the recall, it's important to really impress upon the dog that it's a great thing, so I threw a major party the first couple days, and then intermittently after that.

 

Any time you move up a level then you will want to heavily reward them at first. This is so that your dog still thinks coming to you is way better than whatever distraction you are introducing.

 

Is being a little slow or not coming all the way to you going to be good enough for you in the future? If not, then keep at it until he's 100%. If he's only 95% and you move on, then 95% is what you will get from him.

 

Kee, I'm glad nothing went wrong, but IMO you're taking risks that could set you back. Why do it?

[Tiga's_mom]

I think maybe I'll stay where I am for the weekend and see what happens. He is consistent in the house, but I think you're right, I want him to be more excited to come to me. I'll make the party bigger and go from there. I thought this would be easier, but I'm glad I'm doing it. It shows me how much work I still have to do.

[Miztiki]

One thing I can't really describe over the internet is when to tone the parties down.

 

You want the reward to be strong enough that the dog has every reason in the world to come to you, but you don't want them to get used to it. I don't know how to explain it, but if someone walks up to you today and gives you $100, you're going to tell everyone. If this happens every day then the excitement will eventually wear off.

 

Once Tiga really seems to think that coming to you is at the very top of his list of great and wonderful things, then start toning it down and throwing parties intermittently.

 

You'll know if he immediately comes running to you all happy-like, just like he would for his favorite things in the world (food, rides, wanting to meet another dog, etc.).

 

Toning down would mean a simple "good boy" and pat on the head one time, then maybe a simple treat another time, and then maybe nothing at all on occasion (because in real life we sometimes have our hands full).

 

Try a variable schedule of rewarding and see how he does. If you're not confident that he would do well, then continue throwing a party each and every time.

 

Really though, it's up to you being able to read him and know with certainty how he would respond, then adjusting accordingly.

[Tiga's_mom]

Today has been encouraging. He's getting more excited to come to me every time. Weekends are pretty hectic around here, but I'm going to continue where we are for the rest of the weekend and test him again on Monday when I have the house to myself again.

[Odin's Momma]

Alrighty, I'm still going slowly with Odin. He comes to be nearly every time I call when we're inside, even when he's at my inlaw's playing with Ziggy.

 

I've noticed that it's when he's at the end of this 10 foot lead that he'll resist coming to me, so I'm also going to do some work with him while he's on his leash as well.