Teach A Dog To Come When Called – Professional Dog Training Tips
– Now I’m out here on the
other side of the continent
in beautiful, sunny California.
But I wanted to talk to you guys today
about teaching your dog
to come when called.
Now, we know.
(phone chirping)
Now, you know that
teaching your dog to come
when called can be one of
the most important exercises
that you do with them.
And a really–
(phone chirping)
Teaching your dog to come when
called is all about finding
the right motivator, and I’m
not just talking about food.
In this video,
I’m going to show you four
activities so that you can pick
the right motivator for
your dog so that you have
that 100% reliable recall
where they love to come in
when they hear that word.
But if your dog does love food,
I’m gonna show you a way that you can make
that food even more exciting.
I’m Ken Steepe, welcome
back to McCann Dogs.
(guitar strumming)
(dog barking)
We train over 500 dogs every single week
at our obedience training facility,
so if this is your first
time on our YouTube channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button
so that I can help you to have
a well-behaved four-legged family member.
Now, the first activity I wanna talk about
are for those of you who have
dogs with high prey drive.
Now, you may might think,
jeez, I have a little tiny
dog I don’t know whether
they’ve got high prey drive,
but I’ve seen in some of the
smallest dogs in our classes,
dogs who love to chase and
love to run after their owner.
So, the first game I want you to play
is catch me if you can.
Now, this is a really fun game,
calling your dog towards you
and once they get to you,
not letting them quite get to you.
You know, you sort of
run around in circles
and maybe you can make lots
of noise and let them catch
you for a few seconds and
give them a quick scratch
and then run away again.
For those of you with dogs who love
the rough and tumble play,
you can always push them away
before running away again.
My dog Deegan loves this game,
where I give her a little
shove and then I run away.
Now, if you have a dog
who’s a little bit softer,
who doesn’t like that
rough and tumble play,
the act of just chasing
you and catching you
and the interaction between
you and them is really
where all the value lies in this activity.
The next activity is hide and seek.
Now, this is a really,
really fun one to play.
Once your dog is distracted,
as long as you’re in a safe environment
like in the house, for example,
your dog’s distracted or
they’re in another room,
then you can hide on them
and call them to come.
Now this forces your dog to
use their eyes and their ears,
and their nose, a lot of their senses,
to find out where you are.
Once they’ve found you make
a really big deal of it.
Have lots of fun and
make it really exciting,
and if you want to increase
the value of finding you,
then you can always play
this at their dinner time
and not only do they get a game of play
but they also get rewarded
with all of their dinner.
The next activity is for those of you
who have dogs that love food.
Now it’s going to borrow
a couple of the elements
from the last exercise
where your dog uses more
of their senses.
In this one they’re
going to use their nose.
So, when you call your dog to come
and they run all the way back to you,
sprinkle some food,
some of their favorite treats
around you in the grass
and it’ll force them to
have to use their nose
and scrounge around and quickly
pick up all of those treats.
It’s a great way to
build a different ending,
make it more exciting, changing
it up for both and your dog.
Now, word of caution.
Use this sparingly, we
want our dogs to focus
on us most of the time when we’re working
with them, especially on the recall.
So, make sure you don’t do this too often.
But it’s a great way
to provide some variety
and a different kind of
entertainment for the exercise
for both you and for your dog.
Never underestimate the power of a toy.
This is a great way to add
some variety to your recalls.
And if you have a dog who loves toys,
then you can always
break it out at the end.
Now, the real challenge
here is making sure
that you’re dog doesn’t
know from the moment
they make the turn and they
start heading toward you
that you’ve got a toy.
So, you’ve gotta do your best
to randomly pull out that toy
and make it really exciting.
You can play a game of tug,
maybe you can have a quick game
of fetch is they’ve got
a really good retrieve,
but you want to keep that
variety in your recalls.
The really nice part about
a toy is the engagement.
Once your dog plays and tugs with it,
that only happens when they’re with you,
so really use that toy to keep things fun
and exciting for your dog.
It’s really important to
be practicing your recall
at varying times during your
dog’s life for two reasons.
You wanna make sure that they
still have that snappy turn
as soon as you give them that come command
and you wanna keep it motivating.
It’s really important
that your dog remembers
that every time they hear that word,
something really great is going to happen
when they get to you.
So be sure to practice
this at random times
in various locations as
long as they’re safe.
Now, if this is your
first time on the channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
We publish new videos every single week
to help you have a well-behaved
four-legged family member.
That video beside me is all
about teaching your dog how
to have a motivated fetch.
So, if that’s something
you need to work on
then you’re gonna wanna
check out that video.
On that note, I’m Ken, happy training.
Bye for now.
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