The Recall

The one common ‘problem’ I read about from other pointer owners (and recently came up in conversation) is their inability to recall their dog.  Given that I am pretty confident with this one, despite the odd hare course…yes I know this sounds contradictory but I am confident, I thought it worthwhile posting the advice below.  It isn’t my advice, just advice I was given on the forum of the gundog club http://www.thegundogclub.co.uk so I have either Pippa or Elizabeth to thank.  It does work though and may hopefully provide a framework for anyone struggling out there.  My personal addition to this, however, is to stress the importance of chaining commands.  By this I mean ensuring that when you train a dog to the whistle you chain this correctly with the ‘come’ or ‘here’ command that it has already mastered.  I have read over an over again that, to teach the whistle recall, you call the dog to you then, as she is returning, pip three times on the whistle.  Before long the dog should associate coming to you with the whistle.  I don’t actually think this is the right thing to do (but will always be happy to stand corrected).  In my view it is absolutely assential to pip the whistle in advance of the command.  This way, the dog learns that the whistle precedes the recall command.  The dog then predicts the vocal command and comes on the whistle.  Eventually, with reward, the whistle stimulates an instant response on its own.  I know this goes against the grain of most of the training manuals I have read but hey, it works for me, and Grace will often spin around in a cloud of dust on hearing the recall whistle which must be success of some sort.

By using the whistle in association with meals/food you need to establish the following criteria:

• Come from across the room.
• Come from out of sight
• Come no matter who calls
• Come even if you are busy doing something else
• Come even if you are asleep.
• Come even if you are playing with something/someone else
• Come even if you are eating Once this goal has been realized in the house, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the garden.

Once this goal has been realized in the garden, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the park/field etc.

To train this, or any other behaviour:

1. Make it easy for the dog to get it right
2. Provide sufficient reward

Do not expect a dog to come away from distractions in the park until you have trained it to come to you in the park when no diversions are around. Be realistic and manage your expectations; your sphere of influence/control over your dog may be only 20m to begin with, therefore do not hazard a guess that the dog, at this level of training, will successfully recall from 50m or more away. Distance, like every other criterion, must be built up over time.

Some simple rules to follow when training the recall:

• Whistle/signal/call only once (why train the dog to deliberately ignore your first command?)
• Do not reinforce slow responses for the dog coming eventually after it has cocked its leg, sniffed the tree etc (you get what you train!)
• If you know that the dog will not come back to you in a certain situation, go and get him rather than risk teaching him that he can ignore you. (If you have followed the programme correctly you will never put your dog in a position to fail).
• Practise recalling the dog, putting him on the lead for a few seconds, reinforce with food/toy etc and immediately release the dog. Do this several times during a walk etc so that the dog does not associate a recall with going on the lead and ending the walk or being put on the lead with the cessation of fun.
• Eventually, when the behaviour is very strong, alternate rewards ie verbal praise, physical praise, food, toy and also vary the “value” of the rewards, sometimes a plain piece of biscuit, sometimes a piece of cooked liver etc so that you become a walking slot machine (and we all know how addictive gambling can be)!

For the record I don’t intend regurgitating other people’s advice in this diary, its just that this seems to be a universal issue and if just one extra person can benefit from the advice I was given that can’t be a bad thing.