Hello everyone! This video is on proofing the recall. Now once you've gone through the basics
of proofing a recall most people will work on teaching their dog to come even though there's the
distraction of food, toys, other dogs and people and for some of those dogs those might be the most
extreme distractions for them. However a lot of times uh people will think that if they worked on
multiple things or the games that they've been taught by trainers then their dog should have a
reliable recall because they worked so hard on it. But it's really important to understand your dog
and what certain things really arouse them, make them very excited and also what things
scare your dog a lot. So those two things factor into why a dog might not come back.
Other reasons a dog might not come back could do with the level of stress they're under or illness,
so those you need to take into account. But it's really important to know what excites your dog and
what scares your dog because those are going to be the times when your dog probably won't come back
to you. So if you have this really reliable dog and they're terrified of fireworks, if your dog
is off leash and there's fireworks or maybe it's a car backfiring and your dog runs away from you
when they're scared then your dog is not going to have a reliable recall and they will run away most
likely if there is a loud noise so instead of trying to proof the recall with loud noises the
solution is to take away or reduce the dog's fear, reduce the dog's fears of what they're scared of
so that is the first step to then working on the recall. And conversely if something makes your
dog overexcited instead of just trying to proof the recall with a really exciting thing, you can
actually inadvertently ruin your recall if the dog really wants whatever that is unless you're
using the premack principle whereby coming back to you the dog then gets access to whatever it is.
But one great way besides playing games like the premack principle, but one great way is reducing
the dog's arousal around the things that make them really excited. So if they are excited by
prey in the environment animals moving around, if they're excited by cars, skateboards,
the first step would be can they relax on a mat when something very minimal happens. So you break
the steps of training up into small successful approximations that are easy for the dog.
For example the dog could settle on a mat while you just have a skateboard near. Them and then
move it two inches and then progress to where your dog can just relax while you skateboard around and
then progress to where someone else skateboards around while they relax and then if you can get
a dog to relax around a skateboard they're going to come to you easily when you call them because
you've worked on that arousal for whatever it was. So a lot of people think oh i really need to work
on my recall but in fact it's more about really reinforcing your dog for being calm and relaxed
when different things happen in the environment. So one way to do that is simply taking your dog
out and about in public if your dog's excited about a park and you can work on settle on a mat.
That's going to greatly improve your dog's recall if you can get a dog that's calm at
the park where if you were going there before and your dog was so excited when they get to the park
they're not going to come back to you because there's all this stuff they want to do.
For certain situations being at a distance from whatever it is makes a recall easier
for a dog. So one thing you can do is utilize a leash and a harness attached to your dog or
a fence that the dog can see through and then have the distraction at a distance behind the fence
or have the distraction at a distance from your dog on leash and what you're going to
do is simply ask your dog to look at you or turn to you or even come to you on the
and harness when the distraction is at a distance. So one way of doing that is seeing if the dog
might offer and if the dog doesn't you can create more distance from the distraction
or you can use a treat on your dog's nose to lure them away to create more distance and see if
your dog is able to look at you when you ask for their attention or come to you when you back up.
Another thing you can do if you have an extreme case where something's way in the distance and
your dog is still excited is you can go behind a barrier. So perhaps a parked car, your dog is
fixated on someone holding a ball in the distance because they think they're going to throw it
and the dog is very sensitized and excited by thinking they're going to herd or chase the ball,
so the person standing neutrally with the ball, the dog can't look away even though the person's
as far away as possible, so you could get your dog behind the car ask your dog to look at you
or come to you from behind the car and then they can go out and look at the person at a distance
from a distance. So you're giving them access to looking at the person for coming back to you and
then that would be one way of starting to proof the recall with a distraction. Another thing
you can do is have the person standing with the ball in the field and your dog is close
by. This might actually be easier for your dog than adding distance depending on your
dog. Some dogs are actually easier to work with when they're really close to whatever it is, say
for example meeting a dog they can be called away and then return to meeting a dog but if they see a
dog far in the distance it's extremely exciting for them based on the learning and genetics,
Like for example some border collies things moving small things moving in the distance can
make them herdy but when it's right up in their face they're not excited. Or the opposite so the
same scenario a person holding a ball you could have the dog as long as the dog isn't aggressive
or you don't think the dog is going to hurt the person, you know they're just going to most likely
Sniff the ball or find it uninteresting because it's not being thrown, the person standing with
the ball you let your dog go over and see that the person is not moving and not going to throw the
ball, when the dog is near them and then just wait and at some point you might be able to recall your
dog away from that person. You can also use toys in order to get this behavior so you might have
a similar ball to the person and when your dog comes back to you you throw that ball and then you
release your dog back to seeing that person who's just standing there holding a ball. Now it might
take some time for this training to work but if you're working on something specific and the dog
is stuck and they just can't seem to, i would say after three or five repetitions at the same level
of criteria, if the dog can't look back at you it's too hard and you have to figure out a way
to change the picture or you're going to get stuck with that picture of the dog feeling conflicted
about the recall. You really want to build it in small approximations where the dog is like yes
i can do this it's easy and then you build on that and generalize to any situation where your
dog is like yeah i can do that. I hope you found these tips helpful for your training.
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