How to fix a broken recall

Follow my winning formula to help you teach a recall whistle or power up your existing cue in just five days in my: FREE 5 Day Challenge

Showing you how to train your dog to come back every time by introducing some simple, and fun training games to practice it.

Would it mean the world to you to have a dog that comes back every time it’s called BUT your dog just can’t seem to resist temptation?

For many people, the importance of a reliable recall is twofold:

1. It's NICE to have trust and allow dogs the freedom to explore and exercise. 
2. We NEED to have it for safety, ultimately it could be a lifesaver!

Recall can be relatively easy to train BUT hard to make 100% because as soon as your dog is off lead they have a choice. Without training and practice, a once-reliable recall or a dog that listens at home may ignore you in the real world for a whole host of reasons such as adolescence and the environment. Is your dog ignoring you when distracted by dogs, running off after wildlife, or eating something they shouldn’t?

 

Recall reset

If the answer is yes, you can fix a broken recall by ditching your unreliable command and training a new one by introducing a recall whistle* in our 5-day challenge and cementing the cue to overcome real-world distractions by introducing some simple, and fun training games to practice it. 

* want to give it a go but would rather use a word instead? No problem! We’ll show you how to do that.

 

How it works

• Each day you will be given a task to teach your dog that when they hear the whistle to come straight back to you because it comes to predict that ‘good stuff’ is going to happen at your feet.
• Bonus material offers tips and troubleshooting such as how to work out what motivates your dog to overcome distractions.

 

“Practice makes perfect permanent!”

To make any behaviour reliable, you need reps.

A reflex response is one where the dog doesn’t weigh up their options, they just act. Just like if I tap you on the shoulder, you don’t think about it, you just turn to see who it is? That’s what we want a recall to be.

But making a behaviour a reflex takes many many reps (2,500 x in fact!).

• To avoid training becoming flat when getting those reps in, we give you a sample of the games taught in our full Place Board Course that you can use out on walks to cement the new skill.
• These exercises are there to give you lots of opportunities to practice the recall cue, making it permanent.
• Using a Place Board as a target by your feet when you call them back avoids your dog returning but dances just out of reach and instead teaches them to run right back in front of you. Plus, encourages a straight line and enthusiastic return which is the gold standard in obedience and gundog work

 

Reliable recalls

If you follow this process, you will become a 100% reliable source of all things good for your dog. The chances of any of your dog’s past temptations actually coming to fruition do not have such good odds. Will that exciting smell lead to something tasty? Maybe. Is that rabbit going to disappear down a hole? Probably! So, through practice, it is totally possible to be more motivating than all those real-world distractions.

 

FREE 5 Day Challenge

You may think we’ve taught the dog to come when called, but what it’s actually come to mean to your dog is that being recalled means the end of freedom, maybe they're being taken home or the lead is going on and the fun stops.

We understand that a dog that can't be let off the lead because they’re unreliable at coming back may show unwanted behaviours due to frustration, damaging your relationship and trust and that’s why it’s so important to get the foundations right.

And that’s why we’re here to help:

Our FREE 5-day challenge shows how you can train your dog to come back every time it’s called with a recall whistle and cementing the cue to overcome real-world distractions by introducing some simple, and fun training games to practice it.