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Every dog needs to come when called
By Pet Connection Staff
March 24, 2010
Is your dog trained — or do you just think he is? In this week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature, Gina Spadafori tackles one of training’s most important issues:
Call them the Finger Crossers, if you will — those folks who know if their dogs get loose they’ll get them back only when conditions are absolutely right: if there isn’t another dog to play with, a squirrel to chase or a scent to follow. Or if they’re fast or lucky enough to corner them.
If you’re one of these dog owners, you may well be in the majority. While “come” is one of the most basic of dog commands, it’s probably the one dogs obey the least. While it’s true some dogs are naturally more inclined to come when called than others, obedience is not an impossibility for any dog.
Figuring out why your pet won’t mind is the first step toward fixing the problem.
And from Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker Shannon, the facts about why dogs bite:
Circumstances are a more likely indicator of a dog’s potential to bite someone than the animal’s breed or mix, according to an analysis of bite statistics by the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs and the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association. Loose dogs, territory-protecting dogs, frightened dogs and dogs involved in fights with another animal were most likely to be involved in biting a person. Most bites in the home were triggered by a dog guarding food or a toy, or biting a visiting friend or relative in a display of territory- or object-guarding. The number of bite incidents roughly correlated with a breed’s popularity — more of a certain kind of dog meant more bites from that kind of dog. Age and gender also played a role, with adolescent male dogs more likely to bite — and bite more severely — than older dogs or female dogs. Children were bitten more often than adults.
Want more? Read the entire Pet Connection for this week!
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I’m chuckling over “elicit the help of a trainer.”
Wily and timid beasts, those trainers. But with patience and treats (I strongly suggest single-malt and varietal dark chocolate) one may be coaxed to aid you in your quest to train the dog.
Maintain a sideways stance, no direct eye contact, offer some Laphroaig cask-strength from an open palm, and you may well induce her to come to your aid.
Good luck!
Comment by H. Houlahan — March 24, 2010 @ 6:37 am
:::snort:::
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 24, 2010 @ 6:48 am
Good article! I live in one of those vacation areas - lots of lakes, rivers, campgrounds, etc. If you are vacationing with your dog(s), please be 110% sure he’ll come when called before you let him off leash. I see the signs and the ads every summer for lost dogs.
Comment by PamJJ — March 24, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
And… if that wily trainer’s dog/s don’t come when they’re called - RUN, don’t walk - away.
Anybody can hang out a shingle and say they’re a dog trainer. And letters after their name all too often only mean they passed a multiple choice test that involved no actual handling of dogs.
The best judge of a trainer isn’t jargon or letters or ‘master’ designations or shiny diplomas or a nifty website - it’s her/his dog.
Comment by Janeen — March 24, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
I wonder if anyone has advice for teaching a wily/stubborn rescued greyhound mix (lurcher) to come. I have never had a problem training my dogs to come in the past, but this one acts completely different when she’s on a lead (even a very long one) than she does when she’s not.
As soon as she realizes that she’s that her collar is no longer attached, she smiles over her shoulder and takes off.
Training inside is even a challenge because as soon as I start trying to work with her she runs away and curls up in a ball on the couch.
Comment by Eliblu — March 24, 2010 @ 4:33 pm
Eliblu, if I were you, I’d look to Greytalk or Houndtalk for advice on training recalls with your girl. It can be done with patience and consistency. However, outside of Christie, the folks here are not expert sighthound people.
Comment by Anne T. — March 24, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
I trained my sighthound to come when called by taking her and the other 2 dogs to a safe place (large, unfamiliar to her but fenced) and then running away from her. I would wait until she got far enough away then just pretend like we were all leaving without her. The other 2 dogs have excellent recall so, we would all just start heading in her opposite direction like something very exciting was happening. Not wanting to be left out or left behind, she would freak out and run toward us, getting lots and lots of praise and encouragement each time. It worked.
I’m still very careful, she is a sighthound after all, but I’m not as panicked now when she bolts out the front door. Teaching her that the car is the best thing in the world also helped. If she does get out, I can always get her to jump into the car.
Still, she’s a sighthound…I don’t think you can ever really trust a sighthound to come when called 100% of the time.
Comment by Joy — March 25, 2010 @ 3:01 am
Thanks, Joy and Anne T. We have tried using a large enclosed area many times and she will pretty much always come when called in these types of places. Unless she realizes that someone left the dog park and left the gate open—which has happened a couple of times. Then we have to run as fast as we can to get to the gate first (which is obviously a challenge). I’ve actually developed a strategy with my family for this. If we go to an enclosed dog park, my older sons stay by the gate just in case. :)
But still, she manages to get out of the house occasionally and, once I find her, she almost always will happily get into the car. If I can’t find her she eventually comes back on her own. But, obviously, this is a very upsetting state of affairs.
I have read all of the books I can find on sighthounds and tried getting advice on LurcherLink. But, so far, nothing has worked. Thanks again.
Comment by Eliblu — March 25, 2010 @ 4:35 am
Laphroig is too peaty for me - slather your palm with Oban and I would obediently sit/stay for you.
Comment by Dr. Tony Johnson — March 25, 2010 @ 4:54 am
Re: the middle-toe-flipping lurcher.
I would take a two-pronged approach.
I would drill, drill, drill on the paper-plate recall exercise that is described here:
http://cynography.blogspot.com.....asics.html
I say drill, drill, drill — but in short, frequent sessions, since this dog doesn’t seem too interested in engaging for its own sake. She may need to be genuinely hungry, too.
IME, there is something about that trained send-out that really boosts the recall.
And I would find a qualified trainer to help me introduce low-level electronic collar work. (That crinkly sound is me donning my asbestos union suit.)
I’d be especially mindful of how I do the latter, because this is a dog who has shown that she’s extremely capable of becoming “collar wise.” In which case, you are just adding the collar as another management device — and ultimately, management will always fail.
We aren’t talking about a dog who needs a powerful correction, I think, but one who needs to be convinced that you have the godlike power to reach out and touch her at any distance. So you need to carefully vet your professional and steer clear of any heavy hands or promises of instant fixes.
She likely learned to be leash and fence wise in her previous life. That’s a tough thing to combat. And a lurcher with border collie or another clever sheepdog type in the mix is likely to inherit the big-running impulses of the sighthound ancestor along with the single-trial learning of the collie. This can be an inconvenient combo pack.
I’ll say one thing about sighthounds and coming back, which is supposedly so difficult to get them to do; the ones I went coursing with (not lure coursing — hunting hares) reliably came back. No one tried to call them off a rabbit, mind you, but there wasn’t any question about whether you’d get your dog back after the chase. (Sometimes a person needs to go collect a dog with the truck because he’s just run so far that he’s either out of juice or gotten hisself lost; this can happen in less than a minute of sustained chase.) And they came back after free-coursing and not flushing any game, too, so it wasn’t a function of simple exhaustion.
I don’t think they got any special training for this. I think they got taken hunting, fulfilled their basic needs, and had never learned to not come back. So they came back.
Comment by H. Houlahan — March 25, 2010 @ 5:38 am
Laphroig is too peaty for me - slather your palm with Oban and I would obediently sit/stay for you.
Comment by Dr. Tony Johnson
What, you don’t enjoy sipping an amber tot of distilled essence of bog-mummy soaked in iodine?
Lightweight.
Though, for The Oban, I have been known to do tricks that make a trained seal blush.
Oh wait. That was after.
Comment by H. Houlahan — March 25, 2010 @ 5:52 am
Eliblu , the trick for me was running AWAY from my sighthound. I know it sounds weird but what I found was that she gets scared or freaked out about the idea of being left out of the fun (yippee, we’re all going this way now) or left behind (bye bye, we’re all leaving now). Does that make sense?
Then, once she starts running toward us, I start the “come” command and encouragement. These days, she really pays attention to where I am when we’re out….I guess because, in her mind, she needs to keep an eye on me in case I try to leave her. lol.
Comment by Joy — March 25, 2010 @ 8:57 am
Thanks for your responses, Heather and Joy.
I do think that Tasha would love to hunt—when we adopted her we were told that she was probably bred by someone in Texas (where we got her) who was trying to add speed to his coyote or wild boar hunting pack. Her non sighthound half is likely blue heeler, catahoula leopard dog, or pointer. She’s blue ticked and has markings on her face and legs like a heeler.
She loves, loves, loves the woods, but I have no idea how we would go about letting her hunt/do lure coursing. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. I’m excited to have some new methods to try.
The paper plate exercise looks fun and looks like it would be great for both our dogs. I can get Tasha to ‘wait’ but she is completely disinterested in sitting. She also heels pretty well. So maybe I can work on this without the sitting part.
And, actually, running away from her does often get her excited and interested in following me if we’re in an enclosed area. So far, however, it does absolutely nothing as soon as she realizes that there is no fence.;)
Comment by Eliblu — March 26, 2010 @ 11:28 am