Recall involves –
Timing
Energy
Observation
Understanding of your dog and what motivates them
You are competing with all your dog’s senses and potential desire/drive.
Your dogs are DRIVEN by animalistic desire –
Play
Prey
Flight
Fight
Pack
Sex
These are hard wired into your dog, every dog will be motivated by different things, but these are powerful forces which determine how your dog will respond to their environment.
Sensory perception and processing information.
The nose
With an Olfactory which is 40% larger than ours, humans can have five million scent receptors in this part of the brain, dogs by comparison can have three hundred million.
Coupled with a special organ, Vomeronasal or Jacobson’s organ situated inside the nasal cavity which opens into the roof of the mouth. This is for scent and chemical communication or analysis.
Hearing
Four times more acute than our own.
Your dog’s ears are constantly moving or twitching, sensing sound and honing in on its whereabouts. This is more obvious in pointed ear dogs sometimes, but as long as there are no medical issues with hearing, ears are being used to analyse an environment.
Sight
Sight will vary according to breed traits and characteristics.
Sight hounds and terriers will be triggered by the slightest movement.
It’s generally considered that canine eyesight isn’t necessarily as sharp as humans, dogs have a colour spectrum but not as sophisticated as our own due to less cones.
Dogs see better in the dark because they have rod dominated retinas, and their motion visibility is superior to our own.
Feel of their environment
Dog’s FEEL their environment!
External energy is absorbed which when overloaded can lead to flight response if triggered.
Sighthounds can be prone to bolting long distances when spooked, but this behaviour could be applicable to any dog,
So, when outside and in the application of training, control of your dog’s environment for safety should always be considered.
One command – Recall
One response – Dog comes to you
One reward – pointing to your side by your feet the dog receives their reward for returning to you
Working memory – 3 to 5 seconds for your dog to respond whilst they are looking at a picture of interest in the distance.
We often kill our recall by constantly calling our dogs.
The dog just zones out!
Triggers
What motivates and attracts your dog’s attention.
As mentioned, the drives play a huge part in behavioural responses.
The key is to observe your dog and anticipate what might attract their attention.
Before they are triggered, apply the recall.
Start at a distance to any potential trigger.
While your dog starts to notice something of interest – Recall
Use a high pitch voice and good positive energy, as they are running towards you to keep the energy and high pitch voice going.
Make yourself the most interesting thing in the environment and worthy of coming back to.
Start at home, in the garden then move to a quiet corner of the park.
As with all training, after sufficient energy has been drained to maximise concentration.
Make it fun and leave them wanting more!
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