The secret to teaching your dog to come away from distractions is building strong foundations in all of the 3 recall behaviours.
Here’s how we can begin:
👀↪️ DISENGAGEMENT is the most important element of all of the recall skills and so every effort should be taken to ensure that your dog is capable of being able to calmly and happily disengage with ease from distractions within the environment.
Here’s how to get started:
👉 Start by marking and rewarding every instance of independent disengagement you see from your dog.
👉 Don’t prompt or force disengagement, give your dog time to calmly process what they are seeing/smelling/hearing and disengage in their own time, marking the moment they do and rewarding them for it.
👉 If your dog is struggling they may be too emotional, move to a distance where they find it easier to be calmer and will therefore find it easier to disengage. Learning will be more effective in a calmer state of mind.
👀🙂 REORIENTING TO AND RE-ENGAGING WITH THE RECALLER is vital following disengagement. You want your dog’s attention before they can make meaningful movements towards you.
Here’s how to get started.
👉 With your dog next to you place a treat on the ground, after your dog eats it they will look back up at you, mark and reward the moment that happens, and repeat.
👉 Mark and reward whenever your dog “checks in” (turns towards and looks at you on a walk)
🔗🐶😃 MOVING WITH PURPOSE TO REJOIN WITH THE RECALLER is what we want following disengagement and re-orienting to and re-engaging with us.
Here’s one way to get started:
👉 Decide on a clear and consistent recall signal.
👉Play the Boomerang game 🪃 when out and about:
🪃 With your dog beside you let them see you toss out a large treat, let them go out after it (it’s good practice to condition a release cue as you let them go)
🪃 Let them eat the treat, then as they turn back to you sound your recall signal. (Give your reca
The secret to teaching your dog to come away from distractions is to build strong foundations in all of the 3 recall behaviours. Here’s how we can begin: 👀↪️ DISENGAGEMENT is the most important element of all of the recall skills and so every effort should be taken to ensure that your dog is capable of being able to calmly and happily disengage with ease from distractions within the environment. Here’s how to get started:👉 Start by marking and rewarding every instance of independent disengagement you see from your dog.👉 Don’t prompt or force disengagement, give your dog time to calmly process what they are seeing/smelling/hearing and disengage in their own time, marking the moment they do and rewarding them for it.👉 If your dog is struggling they may be too emotional, move to a distance where they find it easier to be calmer and will therefore find it easier to disengage. Learning will be more effective in a calmer state of mind. 👀🙂 REORIENTING TO AND RE-ENGAGING WITH THE RECALLER is vital following disengagement. You want your dog’s attention before they can make meaningful movements towards you. Here’s how to get started.👉 With your dog next to you place a treat on the ground, after your dog eats it they will look back up at you, mark and reward the moment that happens, and repeat.👉 Mark and reward whenever your dog “checks in” (turns towards and looks at you on a walk). 🔗🐶😃 MOVING WITH PURPOSE TO REJOIN WITH THE RECALLER is what we want following disengagement and re-orienting to and re-engaging with us. Here’s one way to get started:👉 Decide on a clear and consistent recall signal.👉Play the Boomerang game 🪃 when out and about:🪃 With your dog beside you let them see you toss out a large treat, let them go out after it (it’s good practice to condition a release c
Rethinking obedience…🤔
I don’t want a compliant dog or an obedient dog. I want a dog that is free to use their own autonomy to make a decision about how to behave in a particular situation. To think for themselves. 🧠⚙️
This is especially the case when working with reactive dogs. I want to orchestrate situations where the dog is in a mindset to think, to learn and to choose a behaviour based only on the positive outcomes they have achieved by doing so in the past. This mindset can only be created by facilitating relaxation and calmness, without stress, anxiety or tension, where reactive emotional outbursts can be replaced by conscious calm decision making.
In some cases we can facilitate this calm mindset and achieve behavioural change very quickly; much to the fascination and delight of the owners of a particular dog I was working with yesterday evening.
We achieved this within an hour and a half last night, with Bleu, a golden retriever who is prone to reactive emotional outbursts when excited and frustrated by the sight of another dog.
Meeting Bleu and his owners for a 1:1 session, I began straight away to facilitate relaxation by changing Bleu’s lead and lead handling so that he was under much less stress and tension. Then took Bleu through the foundations of focus and engagement where we reward Bleu’s choice to engage with and focus his attention on his humans. We then built on this by rewarding his choices to disengage from something he wanted and to choose to re-engage with his humans again.
Within an hour and a half Bleu was able to maintain a relaxed attitude while seeing another dog, was able to refrain from any emotional outbursts, was able to disengage his focus away from the dog and re-engage his attention and focus back with his humans again all while staying calm and relaxed throughout.
No commands, no reprimands only rewards for his own free choice to focus and engage.
A lovely session with a happy waggy tail from Bleu and h
