Why Recall Is A Lifesaver!

One of the important things you should teach your dog at first is how to respond to their name and to come immediately when called. For one, this demonstrates key attentiveness to the owner and respect for their owner’s needs, but recall can be life-saving. It is absolutely one of the most important things for your dog to get right every single time. If you need to break up an escalating situation at the dog park, or call your dog back when he’s off leash and distracted – what if he doesn’t listen? If your dog turns away from you and keeps running, what are you supposed to do? An off-leash dog may become jumpy and impulsive and get lost or hurt very quickly. Here are some major concepts about recall training to help you and your dog understand it.

• Recall is about attention. If your dog is paying attention to you on some level at all times, or if you can easily get their attention, this is the key to being able to call them back. If you can’t, it’s up to the trainer to figure out a way to guide your dog’s attention back to you.
• Consistent cues. Do you call your dog the same way every time, by the same name and with the same key words? Using different words can confuse your dog and make recall harder for them to catch on to.
• Practicing with outside stimuli. You dog may come to you when you’re at home relaxing, but do they still hear you with other dogs and people around? Implementing other stimuli into the environment is an important part of testing their recall strength.

Strong recall can eliminate these worst-case scenarios by cementing the idea that your dog needs to come immediately when called and like many behavior problems, it has a lot to do with firming up your pet’s fundamental obedience training. At James River Dog Training in Richmond VA, we can assess your dogs one-on-one to discuss the best ways to start recall training. Once you and your dog have mastered recall, you’ll find it easier to let them out in the backyard, or off leash at the dog park without worries of whether they’ll come back to you.

Our in-home training programs are appropriate for dogs of at any age or training level – we’ll work with you on your schedule to teach you how to get started strengthening this bond. Call us today at 800.649.7297 to set up a behavior assessment session or talk to one of our specialists about some of our training programs.