Susie, 5 month old puppy is doing generally well with her basic training. A very useful one is a whistle - two blasts and wherever she is in the bushes (we have a large garden) she appears immediately for the treat that results. Similarly "Susie come" works fairly well but not as reliably. She will come if in sight of us and our actions indicate there may be a treat for her. The problem comes when we call her say from the hall to the kitchen (where her bed and crate are and where we leave her when we go out. She'll come, but stops just short of the gate we have that divides the kitchen and what was the children's playroom. She knows that once past the gate we close it and she doesn't get out again! There are various other times when she gets rebellious and just won't move - literally a sit down strike! We can overcome this behaviour of course with a treat but that would just reinforce the rebellious behaviour. Early teenager?
Hi @Sigurd she is anticipating. You have set a pattern. If you call come inside she predicts now she will be confined. In general, never call your dog followed by an aversive. You want her to come always because her life might depend on it. You have to change the pattern. Go and get her without calling her when the fun will stop. And to undo the anticipation call her. Reward her for coming. And then let her go and play. Play with her. And start doing that inside after a few successful repetitions outside. I am a bit concerned about another statement--you mention that by your actions she works out you have a treat. You are bribing her. Once you have transitioned to the fluency phase of training she should not know whether you have a treat or whether she will get one. Leave it in your pocket and surprise her. Surprises reniforce much better than certain rewards. Don't always give her a food treat when she comes, unless you have just changed the level of distractions or the environment.
I would not use your recall phrase in this situation, because you are calling her to do something she doesn't want to do - so you are kind of poisoning or de-training or weakening your recall phrase. It's the same reason we don't use the recall phrase if we need to give the dog a bath/put ear drops in/clip toenails etc etc - we don't want to call them and follow that up with something unpleasant. She is not really being rebellious - she just knows what follows this behaviour, and it's not something she likes or wants. I suggest that, as Michael says, you have treats in your pockets at all times - for these occasions when you need to ask her to do something. Don't use your special recall phrase, just use her name by itself, or you can even create a new cue like 'In the kitchen'. Next, you need to have several training sessions of 'In the kitchen', when you are not actually going out and leaving her. You need to drill 'In the kitchen' so it becomes conditioned. So you'd just call 'In the kitchen', then get a treat out and throw it in the kitchen. You can click (if you use a clicker) as she passes the stairgate into the kitchen and let her get the treat. Then you immediately open the stair gate and say ok again, and let her out. And repeat, over and over. You want to reach the point where, as Michael says, you are not throwing the treat in first, but you can say 'In the kitchen', she goes in by herself - you click her going in and THEN throw the treat in as the reinforcer. When you get to that, practice over and over - because practice makes permanent. (I like that better than practice makes perfect.) Once you have an 'In the kitchen' trained, then be sure to follow up with a treat always and perhaps a stuffed Kong: Whilst this training can help train the phrase and go some way towards conditioning it to be enjoyable, the reason she is hesitating suggests that she doesn't enjoy being in there and being left alone. So ultimately you also need to be working towards making being in the kitchen, and being left alone, more enjoyable or tolerable - for sustained success.
