One of the most important skills that you're going to teach to your puppy is a
recall command. A solid response to the come command is really important,
as well as a reliable response to name,
it's going to get your puppy out of a lot of trouble before they even get into
it. It's going to allow you to get out and do more with your puppy.
It's also going to avoid some of those nuisance behaviors that drive you crazy.
One of the biggest challenges though,
is that people make a huge mistake in the foundation of training this exercise.
And in this video, I'm going to show you how to avoid making that big mistake.
I'm also going to show you four different versions of the recall that you need
to be aware of. That it's actually going to speed up your puppy training.
It's the kind of recall training that we use to get those great responses.
I'm Ken Steepe and welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Here at McCann Dogs.
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well-behaved four legged family member,
biggest mistake that people make when it comes to puppy.
Recall training comes down to expectations. You're teaching your puppy,
your recall with the best of intentions,
but you're accidentally on doing a lot of your hard work.
If you can't be sure that your puppy is going to respond,
what are you going to do?
What other plan do you have in place to train through that exercise?
There's a big difference between trying to teach the recall and teaching the
recall.
So we need to talk about what you can do when you're not set up for success.
The first recall we're going to start with is the response to name.
Now this isn't a true recall. It's not a formal recall,
but it's the first recall that your puppy is going to learn.
We spend a lot of time when our puppies first come home,
teaching them what their name is.
We have lots of videos here on the channel that talk about exercises,
like say your puppy's name, then feed say your puppy's name and then feed,
maybe say your puppy's name and move away. Bring them in nice and close.
We need to start to build value on that word.
We have to be really careful though that we're not using that word when we
aren't in a position to acknowledge the response,
whether it is a pet on the head or a reward with food or maybe it's, you know,
a game of chase after that response to name.
Thumbs up in this video.
If you think probably training might be the best workout going.
Something that a lot of people do is we start to have some expectation that our
puppy should know this already.
We've practiced that name a little bit and they start using their puppies name
over and over again with very little engagement or interaction with a puppy when
they do get a great response.
The last thing we want is for something like this to happen.
Ken, Yeah. Ken! Yes, Ken!
Yes.
Your expectation should be that your puppy turns the first time comes right to
you.
The first time they hear that word and we're going to set our puppies up to be
really successful in this.
We're going to show them that there's tons of value when they do respond the
first time.
Let's take a quick look at what that might look like when you're teaching your
puppy to respond to their name. The first time every time.
You're going to need some treats,
some delicious treats and have a little line or leash on your dog so you can
keep control. And again, you're going to play a little word association.
You're going to say their name,
and then you're going to lure them with some food. One second later.
Now my puppy is distracted. Here's what I would do.
I'm going to get us attention. Hank. YES. Good boy.
When we're training our puppies, the idea here. Yes. Good boy.
Hank is that our puppies are 100% successful.
So if he's never heard his name before and he's distracted and I say Hank five
or six times, and he doesn't know what to do. When he hears that name,
I'm teaching him from day one that he doesn't have to listen to his name.
So it's important that every step right now is about teaching and learning and
helping. Now.
He's pretty engaged with me now because he knows that I have treats in my hands.
So I'm going to use this to my advantage, Hank,
and then I'm going to feed him Hank. Then I'm going to feed him. Good boy, Hank.
Good. Look at his little ears. Come up. When I say his name. Hey. Yeah.
Good for you. Now let them get distracted. One more time here.
Look it over here. And I'm going to show you again, look, it's on the ground.
So again, by using the food and timing, when I say his name,
I can successfully have my baby puppy. Who's only been here,
a few moments learning to respond to his name every single time.
So you spent some time getting that perfect response to name loading value on
your puppy's name.
Maybe they're even turning their head before you've introduced the food lore
with those great exercises that we just talked about,
but you turn your back for a moment and your puppy sees a leaf blow by and they
start to chase it. What are you going to do? You know,
after all of this discussion that you shouldn't call your puppy's name in a
situation where they aren't likely to be successful,
you need an informal response to name.
And this is the kind of thing where your response to name will be solidified.
If you understand when to use it correctly and when you should use this
alternative.
So if you're not in a situation where you can reinforce your dog or for that
everyday use, you know,
around your house where your puppy might make a mistake where you're not really
sure how they're going to respond, having this informal response to name,
it's going to be real. I know it's very exciting.
We're going to work in just a second.
Having this informal word that you use is going to be really helpful. Now,
pick something short tonality makes a difference. So keep it light and fun.
This is all about motivation. And this is basically a throwaway command.
This is the kind of stuff that you're going to use really early on so that you
get a response from your puppy, but if they don't respond right away,
it doesn't really make a big difference. That Smooch is pretty distracted.
He's chewing on the grass. There's all sorts of things out here,
but I'm going to choose,
choose a short word that he might think sounds fun rather than calling his name
and insisting on getting some kind of response.
I'm just going to do something like really.
But again, if he didn't respond to pup pup pup, Oh boy,
I'm just really keeping it fun and reinforcing the fact that when he turns pup
pup puppy
and I want it to be all about the excitement and this is really how I'm going to
engage him when I'm not insisting that he responds to his name. Now, actually,
when I picked Smooch up today from his owner,
she mentioned that in their household,
they also use an informal command because they have kids.
If you have kids in the house,
having an informal command is going to be so helpful because your kids are
naturally going to want to play with the puppy and engage with them and likely
repeat their name over and over again. So in their household,
they use something like uppy and Smooch seems to respond to it each and every
time, really, really well. But if he doesn't, that's okay too. Pup pup puppy.
Let's talk about an even more important skill. Your dog's formal recall,
and maybe you'll use something like the come command for this.
And I can't stress enough. This skill can be a lifesaver for your dog.
We hear time and time again from our students that their dog ran out the door.
When someone wasn't paying attention or their dog was chasing after an animal
and they called come and the dog turned around. And personally,
I remember when I was in grade four years ago with my puppy she wasn't a puppy.
She was an adult dog then, but we were going for a walk. She saw a rabbit,
started to chase a rabbit towards a busy street. I yelled come.
She turned around,
but I'd spent a lot of time focusing on building value for that word.
And I completely removed the word,
come from my vocabulary when I wasn't training it.
I want you to really focus on what's motivating your dog.
So get them really excited about something.
We talk a lot about restraint recalls in our training,
and it's a really valuable tool,
whether you're teaching response to name or your come command,
especially for the come command though, you get your dog really motivated,
really excited, and then you release them on the word come.
Now this is a foundational step that your puppy needs. People always ask us,
how do you get your dogs trained so quickly? Or you know, why,
why do you guys use dogs that listen?
It's because we never give those dogs an opportunity to be wrong in the
beginning,
we're really setting the groundwork here for a incredible come command.
We use some tips and tricks,
kind of like the ones we just talked about in that response to name.
So we have an informal version of the recall.
So when you're teaching your puppy, the come command,
I want you to never use that word unless you're training it.
You're you're come is your emergency backup.
So you'd never want your puppy to hear it without thinking that there's going to
be some amazing reward that comes falling. It comes from you.
Let's take a look at what,
what the informal recall might look like so that you stop overusing that word,
come in your training.
Now our informal recall is going to look a little bit like the last exercise
that we worked on our expectations are the same. We hope our puppy turns,
but we're going to use it when we just aren't sure.
Or we're going to use this informal recall when maybe we don't have any way to
back it up, really make it exciting or reward or puppy for being successful.
We're going to rely a little bit on our already worked on response to name,
exercise, and I'll show you.
I'm going to show you exactly how that's going to work.
Now you can use whatever word you want when you're practicing your informal
recall. And I'm going to use the word here. Again,
kind of like the last exercise. One, keep it light to tonality is important,
keep it fun and really reinforce for your puppy that this word means good.
Things are going to happen.
Now we've worked a little bit with Smooch in a couple of previous videos where
we talked about response to names.
So you guys know that when he hears that name he'll,
he's likely to follow food lure. And that's important for this step.
You can see he's pretty distracted by digging in the grass and checking stuff
out around,
but here's what I'm going to incorporate that informal recall into this response
to name, exercise. This is exactly what I want you to do at home
smooch. Yay. Here, here, here, here. Good boy.
Good job. Now by simply repeating that here, command I'm loading value.
Really associating that word with good things. As he moves towards me.
Let's get him distracted again. Smooth here, here, here,
and again, as with any exercise where I'm trying to build a little value on me,
I'm feeding him nice and close here means get in close to me.
Get as close as you can. My knuckles are literally touching my shins.
I'm going to reload. We'll do one more time. We'll make it a little bit harder.
All maybe even see if we get a response,
we'll test his response today and see what we get
Smooch here. Here, here, here. Yay. Good boy.
Now as we work on this here, good boy.
We're going to start to be able to use here independent of that name smooch
here, here. Good boy. Very nice buddy.
And that's exactly how you're going to have two versions of that.
Recall one that means make your way over to me,
but you also are going to have that come command.
That's an absolutely definitive get, get to me as quickly as you can.
And you don't accidentally water down that word.
Now. We've used food as a reward for our puppies in this video,
but there's some really big mistakes that people make when it comes to treat
training with the puppy.
And if you want to avoid making some of those mistakes yourself,
click that card right there.
And if you're looking for some personalized help with your specific puppy
training plan,
make sure you check out the link in the description below to our puppy
essentials training program, where you can work with one of our McCann dogs,
instructors to make sure your puppy is getting the best information possible.
And on that note, I'm Ken, I be training.