Teaching a dog to come when called reliably is a long-term project involving months and sometimes years of training. The key is to start early, have realistic expectations and don’t inadvertently teach your puppy they can ignore you.
Here are some tips:
1. Start with a “pup, pup, pup” cue and reward with a treat. Most breeders use this cue when feeding a litter of puppies. It is already perceived as a positive as it has been associated with food and acts like a built-in "come" command.
2. Use this recall cue during puppyhood to get your pup to come to you during the process of teaching a formal recall.
3. With the formal recall there a several important rules:
- - Practice “COME” a lot (thousands of repetitions during the first 4-6 months of training)
- - “COME” is taught as a location, not an action
- - Do not USE the command “COME” until it has been fully taught and fully proofed. That means your dog has been trained to ignore distractions and come directly to you.
- - During this training phase use the “pup, pup, pup” cue
- - Since your puppy isn’t fully proofed against distractions we don’t want them learning they can ignore you or the “COME” command
- - When outside keep your puppy on a long leash or cord
Exercises:
1. Puppy Come in font – requires only one person
- Take a few steps backwards and encourage your pup to come to you. When they arrive in front of you say Come (you are teaching the puppy the Come means to come and sit in front of you!)
- Back up and repeat up to 10 times
- Practice multiple times throughout the day
2. Ping Pong Puppy – requires two people.
- Have people sit 8 to 20 feet apart. They have yummy, high value treats.
- Encourage the puppy to run back and for the between the two people. Use the pup, pup, pup to get the puppy’s attention. When the puppy sits in front say Come to label the location as COME.
- As the puppy becomes proficient you can increase distance and start to vary the treat reward to keep your pup guessing (this strengthens the behavior)
3. Hide and Go Seek – multiple participants
- Very similar to Ping Pong Puppy BUT the people move from location to location to keep with each rep to keep things interesting and challenging for the puppy.