Five Mistakes to Avoid With Your Dog’s Recall!

What’s the one thing you guys need most help with your dog’s training?

If you’ve clicked onto this blog, it’s more than likely recall. And you won’t be alone - it’s one of the most common training problems for most dog parents. There are dogs out there that can recall reliably. Their people have been shown how to create that response - dog’s don’t just know what we want them to do.

It’s pretty much the ultimate dream isn’t it? Confidence that your dog will always come back when you call them, no matter where you are.

With all that in mind, I’m sharing five mistakes to avoid with your dog’s recall. You might just find that it helps you to understand what you need to do to start getting the response you want when you call your dog!

1. NOT TELLING THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO

It sounds so simple, but that usually means it’s overlooked.

I’ve been to the park and heard people saying their dog’s name repeatedly in an attempt at recall. Ok, so what do you want them to do next? Say their name, yes but then tell them what you want - in other words I’d say “Bonnie, here”.

If you’re not telling your dog what you want them to do they’re probably confused. Which is fair enough.

Teach your dog that one word is for recall - I’ve popped a few common recall words below to help, but do just choose one and stick with it as your chosen recall word.

Common recall words: here, come, with me

2. GETTING ANGRY / FRUSTRATED WITH YOUR RECALL

I know, I know, it’s really hard not to get angry when your dog’s decided to have selective hearing.

But think about how you’d respond if someone were shouting angrily at you. You’re not likely to want to go over to them, or you’d be going super slowly to avoid the conflict for as long as possible.

Remember angry person + angry recall = a dog that doesn’t want to come back

3. NOT PRACTISING RECALL WITH YOUR DOG

Again, it' sounds obvious but it does get missed and is a BIGGIE. If you don’t practise recall your dog won’t get better at it, it’s really as simple as that.

Think about when you’re learning something new. It could be training for a marathon, learning a new language, a musical instrument, driving a car. Even thinking back to when you were at school.

Every single thing you learn from scratch needs to be repeated, practised and repeated. You keep doing that until you’re at the level where you can run a marathon, say a sentence in fluent Spanish or play the violin with ease.

At school you began your early maths lessons (I know, it’s not a great memory for me either!) by learning how to add super simple numbers together. I mean we’re literally going back to the years of learning 3 + 2 = 5 here. You would only get better at maths, in your own time, because you practised!

Now, take your example of learning something new and transfer it across to recalling your dog. If you’ve only done recall training a handful of times at your puppy class, your dog is truly not going to be very good at it.

4. CHASING YOUR DOG

It’s such a common one this, it had to make it to my top 5 mistakes to avoid.

Stop chasing your dog. Whether it’s round the house as a game, or at the park when you’re trying to get them back. Your dog will have learned that this game is AMAZING!

Dogs love the idea of being chased to get some attention. Even if you’re chasing them when it’s not game time, your dog doesn’t care - it’s attention in their eyes! Take away the fun of chasing them and they’ll stop.

If you make recall about them choosing to come back to you instead - they’re more likely going to do that when you want them to.

5. HAVING TOO HIGH EXPECTATIONS

We’re talking expectations vs reality here.

Think of a child going to a new park for the first time, it’s got different stuff, a big slide, all the things - they’re going to be super excited when they arrive. They might not be listening to you because they just want to get on there!

It’s the same for dogs, with the added element of their senses going wild. Noses and ears predominantly!

Your expectations of reliable recall may be too high in this scenario. But you think you’re always at your local park with your dog and they can recall there. So you let them off lead in this new place as soon as you arrive, feeling confident.

This is the mistake. You expect reliable recall, but reality is it’s likely not going to happen. Not at the start at least. The context has completely changed for your dog, everything has become super interesting.

Have a think about where your recall has failed in the past. If it’s been when you’re somewhere new, lower your expectations. And add in some management (like keeping them on lead for a bit) according to the reality of the situation and then start to re-build the focus in the new place before letting them off!

So, now I’ve gone through them, do you reckon you’ve made any of those mistakes? It’s completely fine if you say yes! That’s exactly why I created the blog.

If you start to recognise where you’re going wrong, you can start to make the changes to get it right!

Now, if you’d love to take the first step to understand why your dog’s recall fails, I’ve got a little freebie just for you! My free e-book ‘7 Reasons Your Dog’s Recall Fails’ has all the things you need. It’s packed with tips, challenges, a little quiz and has a bonus exercise all to get you well on your way to transforming your dog’s off lead walks.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE E-BOOK HERE

p.s. if you’d love to try an awesome brand of training toys that really work to create motivation in your dogs, check out Tug-E-Nuff here and use the code ‘LAVENDER9’ at the checkout for 10% off!

p.p.s if you can’t wait to get started with your dog’s recall transformation, I’ve got something for you. If you’d prefer an online course to work through at your pace, or you want some 1:1 support, it’s all right here 👇

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY IN-PERSON 1:1 SUPPORT HERE

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY 5-WEEK RECALL COURSE HERE