Get a safe call!
Teaching your dog to come EVERY TIME you call is a difficult and important exercise that requires time and patience. Having a solid call where you as an owner can trust your dog helps to give both dog and owner more freedom and peace of mind.
Many owners often say that their dog can come when they call, as long as there is not another dog, a squirrel or something else disturbing in the surroundings. And these are disturbances we cannot avoid in everyday life with the dog. Therefore, it is important to keep training the summons and increase the difficulty in the form of disturbances and new environments.
Remember that there is a difference between dog breeds, if you have a cooperative breed that has just been bred to cooperate with the owner, you will often find that it is "easier" to train calls. If, on the other hand, you have an independent breed, the motivation to come back when the owner calls is not always very high if they have set off after game or an exciting scent.
So how do you start training?
I have taken the starting point of the call-in training with a puppy. If you have an adult dog that has had a lot of trouble and time and time again ignores the call, I would recommend seeking help from a trainer and starting all over in the training with a new call signal.
First, you must select a call sign. I recommend a flute as the sound is ALWAYS the same and is not affected by one's mood. Especially if there are several people in the family, the whistle is good, as for the dog there is no difference between "Father's" and "Mother's" voice. The sound in a dog whistle is also always positive and cuts through more. Often our voices become a form of background noise for the dog and therefore do not cut through as much from a long distance.
Many people think that only the hunting dog people or the herding dog people use whistles, but that is not the case at all. So I recommend buying a flute. I like the brand ACME sound 210 1/2 slightly brighter sound or 211 1/2 which is not so shrill in sound.
Start by practicing whistling without the dog hearing it at first. Many just have to learn how to whistle. The dog's ears have an easier time picking up start / stop sounds, so practice being able to whistle 4-7 small start / stop sounds right after each other.
When you have mastered the whistle, equip yourself with delicious treats in the treat bag and feel free to start the training inside the home, without the puppy having access to disturbing things such as chew sticks and toys. In this way, the puppy has full focus on the signal.
On-call training within:
1. The puppy moves freely around the home, when the puppy is approximately 1 meter from you and has its snout in your direction, you whistle and give delicious treats and verbal praise. Whistle GENTLY the first few times so the puppy doesn't get scared by the new strange sound you make. Repeat about 10 times.
A. After the puppy has been rewarded you say "free" while you start walking, the puppy does not know what free means yet, therefore we help the puppy to understand that "free" means you can now do what you want.
B. By teaching the puppy the word free, we will later get an adult dog that will stay with the owner until it is free. This means that the dog does not just come, get his reward and run again. It is useful, especially if you just need to put the leash back on.
2. Now you have to check whether the puppy has understood that the sound of the whistle means that a party is happening at your place. Again, you and the puppy have approximately 1 meter distance. Get someone else to make a disturbance e.g. a rustling noise in another room as the puppy looks away from you towards the sound of YOU whistling. If the puppy turns its focus back on you and comes, then it has understood what the sound means. If, on the other hand, the puppy does not return its focus, it has not understood it yet. Therefore, train step 1 more.
3. We extend the test of the puppy's understanding of sound. This time wait until the puppy is moving away from you, when the puppy is 1-2 meters away and heading towards something it wants to investigate, then whistle. If the puppy turns back towards you, cheer and praise verbally while it is on its way back, always reward with a treat when it has come all the way too. If, on the other hand, the puppy continues to what it wants to investigate and thus ignores the call, you must go back in steps 1 and 2 and make it easier for the puppy before proceeding again.
4. Now the call sound has been learned and the puppy is ready to train what looks like "real" calls.
Good things to remember:
- What kind of reward does the dog get, is it dry food or dog liver pâté in a tube? The dog's reward for coming helps build the motivation and without motivation to come, we don't have a call. So here at the beginning always reward with the best it could imagine and vary a little.
- Party at the owner's house. The dog must know that the summoning sound means a party with the owner, so make something out of the reward when the dog comes. Praise verbally while it is on its way back, reward with the tastiest treats and possibly throw a ball or play tug of war with the dog when it has arrived. If we as owners are to be able to deal with a squirrel or another dog, then we really have to be able to offer something so that the dog chooses us and the disturbance away.
- Toys or treats as a reward? There is a difference between dogs, some dogs are picky but love a good ball or fur pull toy, for these dogs I will use toys as a reward. While other dogs love food and did not think that a ball is very cool to get when you have liver paste in your pocket, here I want to reward with food. You can also easily use both parts if you have a dog that both loves to play and is fond of food! If you choose to use a toy as a reward, then the specific toy must NEVER be available to the dog when you are not training. It is only something that it can get during training. In this way, the toy retains its value for the dog.
Extended training of the call outside:
1. Start by training in the garden or in a familiar place without too many disturbances. The fact that you are now training in a new environment is a disturbance in itself. So to achieve success with the training, the place outside must not be filled with other things that can disturb the puppy's focus.
2. Start the training again as described earlier.
A. Remember to give the puppy "free" every time you end the call.
3. Now expand the training by going out into new environments that are foreign to the puppy. Or let it search the area before you start training. Again, make sure that there are not too many disturbances in the form of other dogs, nurseries on walks or game. The environment itself is disturbance enough at this point in training. Start the training again as you did inside at the very beginning.
4. When the puppy has become really good at picking up the call signal at home in the living room, the garden and in a strange environment, you can start to add disturbances in the form of e.g. other dogs. Maybe let the puppy play or greet a good dog friend, only when the greeting/play is over and the dogs are no longer interested in each other, you whistle. Remember to be close to the puppy when you whistle, that way there is more success for it to come all the way to you.
5. Continuously increase the degree of difficulty in the call, either in terms of the distance between dog and owner, new environment or disturbances. Remember, if you make one thing more difficult, the others must be made easier for a greater chance of success. See visualization below:
We have three things to train in the call-up training, at the beginning we only train one at a time and make the other two easier. The better the puppy gets and when it gets older, we can start training several of them at once. But for the most success, start with one at a time and switch between which one you train.
This way you always have 3 bars to screw on in terms of degree of difficulty, work a little back and forth with them, and make it harder for the dog all the time. But also remember to train the easy calls so that the foundation for the call remains stable.
REMEMBER: Always reward with the best you can offer your dog in the learning phase, the more difficult a disturbance it has chosen to ignore in order to come back to your call, the better than reward it should have!
Mistakes dog owners often make:
- Going too fast and training at a level of difficulty that is far beyond the dog. Proceed slowly and in a structured way, and it will come.
- To scold when the dog does not come. This absolutely does not help the dog to come. Being in conflict with the dog when it does not come only makes the training worse. Instead, practice to yourself and go back to the training if the dog did not come. Remember, we only want to build on a positive feeling in the dog when you call!
- That you only use the summons when the dog has to be on a leash and come home from a walk. Over time, this can give the dog a bad association. Summons = all fun ends. We want to avoid that, so train calls in all possible scenarios, also where the dog is just given free time to run out and play again.
With all that said, enjoy the training and remember that you can always seek professional help if the training goes completely off track.
In the text, a puppy has been mentioned as a partner, this method can also easily be used for adult dogs whose calls are lagging.
If you need further help with the call, Rikke Roed, dog trainer (edited by Irene Jarnved) is ready to help you. Rikke can be contacted at Rikke.roed@live.dk
