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There are numerous ways that dog owners work against themselves. Usually, when the dog will not listen and obey, it is the result of some error on the owner’s part. The dog watches the owner’s behaviour carefully and uses those observations to its best advantage.

The dog will take advantage of the most casual behaviour. See if this is what you do?… You have trained the dog on the recall. In your back yard, the dog comes to you every time it is called. So, with what you hoped is a well trained dog, you go to other enclosed spaces and let your dog go off leash. You have a recall command to control your dog. You let the dog run and play for some time. Then you call your dog, snap on the lead and turn for home. A few times later, your off leash dog refuses to come when you call. Your recall command has disappeared.

You have destroyed your off leash command.

Your dog is a keen observer of your behaviour. Your dog likes to be off-leash. It can run and play and explore, at will. When you call, the fun ends. The leash goes on and there is no more running and playing. From any self respecting dog’s perspective, this is not a good thing. So the dog tries to squeeze in a bit more play time; and, in doing so, the dog makes a discovery. The dog learns that it is faster, more agile and more athletic than you. Your recall lessons have been destroyed. The dog learns that it can extend its play time - perhaps until your volume and body language says it had better finish playing. Then the dog will go to you.

How do you prevent this from happening? - The solution is to be less predictable. Do not always go home when you call the dog. Call and give a treat. Then send the dog off to play again. Call the dog and just tell it how clever it is for coming to you; then send the dog off on its own again. Call the dog, put on its leash and go to another fun venue. Set the dog off-leash again. Let the dog run and play.

The point is that coming to you has a positive pay-off. Most time, fun things happen when the dog goes to you. A recall command from you does not always mean that the fun stops. You may have a treat. You may want to go to even a better place to play. The dog doesn’t know what is going to happen next but, usually, it is a good thing. Now you are not spoiling the fun - and have become more interesting and less predictable to your own dog.

Catherine Forsythe

Tags: dogs, interest, owners, predictability, recall, training, variety

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