This course is going to be a fun one! There are several games that make up the pieces of the recall and we are going to teach them to our dogs over the first four weeks. We will be adding distance, speed, doing out of sight recalls, and adding controlled distractions. We will also be experimenting with reinforcers to figure out what we can use to help motivate our dogs to really want to come back to us.
The last two weeks will be spent fine tuning the games and adding them together to create a behavior chain that makes up a recall. We will also add a cue for the whole behavior! Discover several ways to deal with a failed recall so you still are building a reliable one in the future.
We will work through a 9 step recipe that is sure to get an eager return on cue. The last two steps will be covered in Part 2.
This class is going to be fun and you will get to know your dog better! We look at what creative reinforcers you can use for motivators. We will train one dog at a time so they each know what we want.
Be prepared for lots of theory/reading in the first week, less as we go. This is usual for my classes as the background science is just as fascinating as the training process to me! Weekly homework is given and you will also be supplied with a checklist of the games.
You won't need a huge space for Part 1, but start looking around for other areas with channels and limited site lines (near home) for Part 2.
This class is for puppies and dogs of any age and is the foundation/prerequisite for Recalls Part 2.
I'll post a few lectures before class even starts (after you register) to get you jump-started.
If you have taken the "Build the Bond : Recalls" class before, this is the same class but divided into two parts. This will give students more time to practice all the games with their dogs.
Registration
Session starts:
August 1, 2018
Session ends:
September 11, 2018
Enrollment begins:
July 22, 2018
Enrollment ends:
August 15, 2018
There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please
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Available for the October session as a prerequisite purchase - lectures only.
Here is one of the games we play to teach the dog one of the parts of the recall behavior chain.
Game 9 Pendulum Game
This game is for dogs who tend to range far ahead of you when on a walk. It also teaches your dog to watch your body language for signs of turning. It reinforces the auto check-ins. The game works best in a long channel situation like a pathway or logging road but does work in more open areas if your dog likes to stay ahead of you. I like this game as the dog gets much more exercise than the handler does so it's a great game for people who don't like to or can't walk much. It's a good game to play at the start of a walk to get your dog to burn off some extra energy before you start. Put a 20-30 foot long light line on your dog for this game to start unilt he's reliable in each environment.
Objective 1: Dog turns back to you when you turn away
Start teaching the game with your dog ahead of you a few steps and looking at you. Turn around but keep watching him and mark the instant he turns in your new direction. Toss the treat ahead of you to get him to run past you. When he stops to get it, turn again and walk in the other direction. Mark and toss the treat ahead of you the instant he turns back to you. The environment itself should quickly draw the dog ahead of you so fade the treats as fast as you can and stop marking the turns. The dog gets reinforced for moving with you in the new direction. Each time you train in a new environment, use the treats to reteach him how to play it.
Here is Lucy playing the game near the start of a walk and on a long line. You can see she really isn't interested in heading back toward the car but does go further ahead when we turn to move away from it. This is typical. They don't tend to run as far back towards the walk's starting point unless you are far away from it.
Objective 2: Dog turns back to you when he is further away from you
Once he catches on to the game, let your dog move way out in front of you before you turn. As soon as he nears the end of the leash, but before he gets there, turn away and walk in the opposite direction. This time you play, try intermittently marking and rewarding. Keep walking until he's caught up and passed you and is nearing the end of the long line. Turn and walk back in the direction you came. Drop the leash if it is safe to do so.
Objective 3: Dog plays the game without treats
Gradually phase out the treats until you can just turn and he moves with you and runs ahead. Once he knows how to play, you can use this both on a long line and off as a way to keep him near you. Here I play off leash with two dogs. This area is a huge fenced area so is safe to let them off.
Watch for Lucy checking in several times. She is the dog that liked to roam so much further away when we first got her and the one we worry about taking off after wildlife. This is the first 2 minutes of our walk. Just in case you think Lucy has always stuck this close, the first time we risked letting her off the long line under the power lines about a month after we got her, she took off and ran so far down the road we couldn't see her! It was way too soon to give her that much freedom so we kept her on a long line and worked with her much more before trying again. Part of this was that she wasn't used to getting regular exercise yet so had energy to burn (she had been tied up to a tire on a 6-foot leash most of the day for several months and was quite destructive).
If you do it often enough on a walk, you will find that the pendulum dampens. That is, he will not go as far ahead of you each time you start walking. If he does go too far ahead, simply turn around and walk in the other direction.
Limit the game to once for a short walk or twice during a long walk so he doesn't get bored of it.
Objective 4: Dog watches for your movement at trail junctions
This game can also be done off leash in a Y or T trail junction where you turn just as your dog is about to go out of sight. If you vary which arm of the trail you go on, you can keep it up for quite a while, especially if you go out of sight since trees are in the way. Just wait until the dogs are not looking and disappear down one of the arms.
Problem Solving Tips: Some dogs may catch on to the game and just wait for you when you turn back towards your starting point. Just keep going until the dog comes in your direction, then mark and reward the decision to come with you. Other dogs may lag behind if they don't want to walk further. Take that as a sign that he doesn't want to go further. Jessie is very efficient when it comes to walks especially on hot days. When she is done walking, she will tell me by using the stopping or lagging and staying closer to the car or in the direction of home. I will usually put her in the car, loop her leash around trees or let Bruce hold her while I play the pendulum game with Lucy so she can get more exercise. Lucy always needs more than Jessie.
In this clip, you can see Jessie waits to make sure I am committed to my new direction each time I turn. If she thought I might not really be going in that direction for long, she would wait me out. When we first got her she would stop and not move again until she got what she wanted-moving in the direction she wanted to go. Lucy (who is full of energy) always immediately turns and runs towards my new direction. This shows that dogs with different energy levels will respond in different ways. As long as there is an improvement in your criterion for the game, then you and the dog have succeeded!