Recalls and Rewards

Extinguishing bad behavior, and desensitizing dogs to stimulus have a tangential relationship to canine recall, one of those things which so many dog owners would like to improve on.

What's the relation? 

Well for one, let's look at why so many dogs do not come when their owners call.  Most of the time, the answer boils down to two problems:

1. Low motivation
   .
2. High aversion

Low motivation is not a small issue.  A well-fed dog that has been home alone all day, is now in a park full of dogs, squirrels and scents.  Freedom is everywhere and your dog is very much like a child trapped in an algebra summer school class all day, now finding himself at the state fair with friends, cotton candy and thrill rides all around him.  Unless the dog is very hungry and you have food (the easiest way to increase canine motivation) or your dog is really toy obsessed or owner-obsessed, you are going to naturally fall into the second fiddle slot.

That said, most dogs want to do what their owners ask of them, and though their recall may be a little weak and tentative, if it's not there at all that's generally due to the fact that past recall acquiescence has always meant a leash snapped to the collar and the end of all play.

How to change that dynamic? 

Simple: First teach the dog that a unique whistle from you (a whistle from your lips is always with you) means FOOD. 

Second, take a VERY hungry dog to the park (do not feed it for 24 or 36 hours and you will find it learns very fast) and recall that dog all the time in order to slip it a little food.  Almost never put it  on a leash, and if you do, take it off right away and let the dog run free again.  

What you are doing here is normalizing your recall command to mean "food and play" rather than "the end of play" and "back to the prison planet" of the back yard.

What you are doing here is extinguishing (of a sort) the negative memories associated with recall and normalizing recall with a positive experience. 

Through repetition and a change in your actions, you are desensitizing the dog to the notion that a leash means "no more fun" or a reach for a collar means "a return to solitary" at the house.

This is basic training.  How do you get a really firm recall -- one that the dog will obey even when a deer calls or a squirrel is darting across the road?  How do you train a dog so that it will not kill itself in an open-road situation with lots of strong attractants nearby?  How do you train a dog to always follow a command in a battlefield situation? We'll leave that for another day, since most people will never need it and/or should not be putting their dogs in a situation where such a command-and-control response is ever needed. That said, it involves a little more than whistling and cheese!