Why Dogs Don’t Come
Sherri Regalbuto
We have just returned from the park, my 11 mos. old standard
poodle and I. We were working on his obedience around
distractions. With mild distractions, he’s pretty good. We have
quite a way to go before he is performing in a high distraction
area. While at the park, I witnessed a scene that compelled me
to write this article.
On one side of the park we were working on our obedience, and on
the other side was a man and his rottweiler. We were using them
as our distraction, unknown to them. I’ve seen this dog before
and felt for her. She has made several attempts to come and
visit my dogs, only to have her neck choked very hard. Today he
was doing some sort of training. I’m not sure if the owner was
trying to get the dog to retrieve or just to come to him. I was
very involved with my guy when I heard the scream. A scream of
pain, there was no mistaking it.
After being stopped in my tracks, I proceeded to watch what was
going on. The scream had come from the rottweiler, while they
were training. The man was letting his dog wander to the end of
an extendable leash and choke collar. He would then call her to
him. When she didn’t come, he would inflict an almighty
correction. This correction is where the scream came from. It
was repeated, the dog didn’t come, the correction did and so did
the scream. Each time, the dog sensed his owners aggression, she
hit the ground, cringing and rolling over. This was supposed to
entice the dog to come? I wouldn’t come, I would try very hard
to escape this situation.
I find it very difficult not to step in and educate people, but,
I have learned when it is best not to. This man was very angry.
After attempting the come several times, he looked over at me and
then dragged his dog home with him. With every come command, his
dog had gotten worse and worse. By the time the man was leaving,
the dog was straining at the end of the leash, trying to maintain
a good distance from her owner.
This is an all too familiar scene. A longtime ago I trained my
dogs the same way, before I knew. I never achieved a reliable
recall with this method and had very unhappy dogs. Why do we
expect a dog to drop what it is doing and rush to us? Because we
say so? And if they don’t come fast enough, we choke them.
Think about this. If a friend of yours kept calling you over
while you were in the middle of something very important, just to
say ‘good.’ Would keep going over? Or would you finally stop
going, would you not get aggravated at this friend? Now, if the
same friend called you time and time again. Every time you came
you received a chocolate truffle, you would keep coming happily
wouldn’t you?
To get and keep a reliable recall from your dog, you must reward
it for coming. You must train and train and train. You start
out in a quiet area until your dog gets the idea. You then move
to more and more distractions as your dog succeeds. You must
never, EVER associate anything that your dog would consider
negative to the word ‘come.’ A negative association to ‘come’
slows down the dogs response. Do use the command ‘Come’ when
feeding, walking, playing or petting your dog. When you don’t
follow the command ‘Come’ with a positive activity, you should
ALWAYS reward your dog with a food treat or favorite toy. ‘Come’
could someday save your dogs life, but not if they don’t come.
Some dogs, like my Jack Russell need to be rewarded for a longer
period of time. Even now at the age of 5 years, she is still
rewarded for coming when highly distracted. She will stop, mid
rabbit chase and come when called. But, this is only because it
is well worth her while to do so. This goes against what her
instinct tells her to do. But it has been ingrained so well by
training, training, training, that it overrides her instinct.
Pretty impressive in my books.
This does not happen overnight, this took a lot of training and
rewarding good behavior. You cannot make a dog come when off
leash, they must want to come. This is done by patient
training. Having a close bond with your dog is definitely a key
factor. If you are an unreliable, unpredictable leader, you will
have an unreliable recall. Be a patient, kind and fair leader
and you will have a dog that wants to come to you. Consistent,
positive ‘come’ training will give you a reliable recall.
Sherri Regalbuto is a professional dog trainer in California
You can visit her web site online at:
www.sounddogbehavior.com
Copyright©2001 Sherri Regalbuto
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