How do you train a dog to recall with distractions?
Justine Koelpin
2025-05-30 04:05:49
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: 13
I knew my gap was in recalling Otis away from something he wanted to eat when he was close to it and off leash.
I decided to use chicken as the distraction and chose to work in a relatively small and clear space.
I put some chicken into a bowl and then put that bowl inside of an x-pen, this allowed me to build up a bit of a reinforcement history with Otis for recalling away from that chicken while off leash without having to worry about him failing a recall.
I removed the x-pen, and I focused on recalling him early in his approach to the chicken, marking behavior quickly, and using some of my own body movement after the recall cue to help him out.
At the very end of the session, I release him to go eat the distraction chicken as his reward.
Recall has to be fun, and simply doing fun things with your dog will improve your recall — especially playing with them.
I have found that I actually need toys and play to really really build that crazy speed with recall.
There is a lot that goes into recall and building it up looks different for different dogs.
This is just an example of how I started working through a gap I found, and hopefully this can give you some ideas on how to work through areas where your dog is not able to recall.
Jaiden Lowe
2025-05-30 03:32:17
Count answers
: 11
Teach your dog to respond to their name before adding recall, teaching your pooch their name makes it easy for you to grab their attention when you need it. Always reward your dog when they come back, start indoors, in your garden, or in another enclosed space with some tasty treats to hand. Get your dog’s attention with their name, then use your recall cue and take a step away from them. Reward them with praise and a tasty treat when they come to you. Add in some distractions and increase the length of the recall distance, gradually increase the distance between you and your dog and the level of distractions you call them away from. Let them move away from you before using your recall cue, and use a long line attached to. If your pooch keeps darting off when you call them, stick with training on a long lead attached to a harness, and only let them off-lead in secure areas. Only let your dog off their lead in open spaces when you’re confident they’ll come back when called.
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