It’s a common theme… recall training

(Client’s name and email kept for privacy)

By training with us in a structured and humane system of training, the results speak for themselves.  We’ve proved it time and time again.  (And let’s define SYSTEM, because this is a way of following a set of principles that work with EVERY dog)

Other ‘dog trainers’ that don’t keep an open mind or try new methods (or don’t know how) are not just limiting themselves, but also the clients they have.  Too many trainers are still doing recall training only with food, or in ‘enclosed’ areas. Rarely are they ‘training’ in real-life environments… because… what if their dog DOESNT listen?  What if the dog has no interest in food/treats? Often it is the times when our dog does NOT want to listen, is the most important time of which we want them back to us!

Sarah trained with us with private lessons and her dog is now off-lead with a remote training collar.  She came to us for recall training, and well, I’ll let you read her email taken from my computer…

Recall Training Ecollar
Recall Training Ecollar

Recall training is the single most important thing to train your dog.  Minutes can seem like hours of frustration with a dog that doesn’t listen, we need (we want) a dog that comes back to us when called, to love doing it and enjoy the process.

Can we get 100% recall with any dog? If your dog was on a lead all the time, would you have 100% recall?  Yes – because you can physically ‘pull’ your dog in.  I still can’t believe that other trainers say you can’t get ‘100%’ – or ‘don’t believe trainers that can guarantee anything’ the fact is, we can.  Another person’s inability is not a determining factor of what is possible and what is not.

Let’s not debate about the 100%, because some days dogs aren’t perfect but at least at the times when they are not perfect, I have a means to help them and guide them to what I want, so I can reward them, so that they can ‘be’ 100%.  Whether they are 10m, 100 or 200m away from me, wouldn’t it be nice to KNOW that I have full control of my dog.  To be able to call them back in an instant?

I would rather prefer having 95-99% recall than a 50% recall; and I would rather prefer that my clients, owners and friends to have dogs that are under control in public around other dogs and animals.  I want to have the freedom to let my dog off lead and let them run and knowing they will come back.

Do we need to train a 100% recall in every dog? I don’t know. I don’t know what your dog is like, what you want from your dog, or what you expect to have in the training.  There are times when a dog is social, friendly, and in general follows the owner without being a danger to other people – if their recall is on/off 60-70% that is not a big deal.  Though, not many of our clients are like that – we often get the dogs who seem to have no regard for who their owner is, and this is NOT a relationship problem. This is a training problem.

People who want to take the steps to move forward, learn new things, and to pick up what ultimately is a way to resolve what has gradually become quite a big problem in their daily routine – recall training, the single most important thing to teach your dog.