Either Edsel has gone stone deaf or we are having serious recall issues. Seems it just started in last couple days. Had been doing really well in house and around our property unless some fabulous distraction in play. Now I can't get him to recall from 10 yards away with no distraction. Just stops, stares at me and continues to wander on through the yard. I'm afraid I may not be rewarding appropriately or may have ruined my recall signal out of frustration. Should I change recall command? Should I go back to frequent recall in the house and reward each success? I am concerned about getting this corrected ASAP as he is becoming much more comfortable with exploring the property and am concerned for his safety as well as my sanity. Lori
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Hi Lori , sorry that you are struggling . I would go right back to the beginning again , treat him like a new pup , and yes change the command . If you keep the same command that he has learned to ignore , you arre setting him up to fail the test , so right back to basics again . Dont despair , most of us have gone through this stage , he is very young and will learn , good luck
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Isn't he about 6 months now? I found a very similar thing with Charlie - recall got harder as he became more independent. I think I had a good "puppy recall". That is, one that worked very well when he wasn't inclined to go wandering far from me, but it didn't stand up to distractions once he was comfortable about wandering off. I think it's about properly proofing your recall - I definitely had to proof my recall again when Charlie got older, him coming to me in the park when he was a little scared to be away from me was definitely not the same as him coming to me in the park when he was perfectly happy to go say hello to everyone at the hotdog stand 300m away....
Re: Afraid I've lost recall We had the same problem at 6 months, he appeared to go "deaf" I think this is the age they start to gain confidence and therefore test a bit of independence from us. We went back to basics but added in new high value treats (small cat food sachets and warm roast chicken) we also started line work outside which really tightened up the recall, not saying it's particularly tight, but it is a lot better than when he was six months old.
Re: Afraid I've lost recall When Tatze went through that phase I used tinned salmon (!) as a jackpot. I had a little tub which I put it in and she licked it out on recall. Of course, she only got salmon once in a while, but she was ever hopeful after a few times! It worked, her recall came back and continues to be great (15 months)
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Hi Lorilou, don't worry, this is a common problem and even if you have damaged your recall signal, you will be able to retrain with a new one. What kinds of rewards have you been using so far?
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Molly also had a blip at that age and I started again from scratch. However the thing that helped most of all was the 'about turn walk'. I went to the forest, set off, off -lead and as soon as Molly got just a few yards ahead I blew my whistle and turned in another direction. I kept repeating this and soon she was keeping a really close eye on me. Being in the forest meant there were lots of different routes and I was quickly out of sight. I still do this about once a week, just to keep her on her toes.
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Hi Pippa! I have used bits of roasted chicken , turkey, hot dog. I'm thinking that I began to take the recall response for granted and stopped rewarding altogether recently and he's finding other things much more interesting than coming to me. Julie - He's a little over 5 months and definitely testing his limits. He's demonstrating much more independence. He has no fear of anyone or anything and we are rife with distractions here. Woods, creek, wildlife and recently discovered children that live at the end of our road. Thinking of using a non typical recall command such as "now" to avoid all the well meaning but also stone deaf family members and friends who throw "come" and "here" around left and right.
Re: Afraid I've lost recall [quote author=lorilou61 link=topic=7017.msg95771#msg95771 date=1405776784] Thinking of using a non typical recall command such as "now" to avoid all the well meaning but also stone deaf family members and friends who throw "come" and "here" around left and right. [/quote] Or a whistle that's just yours?
Re: Afraid I've lost recall That was going to be my next question - keeping a high rate of reinforcement in the early stages is crucial. You can fade the reinforcements to an intermittent level in 'safe' situations - i.e. where you know that his response is very well established and reliable (but don't phase the rewards out completely or the recall response will eventually extinguish) and ramp them up again every time you move onto a more challenging situation, such as going from house to garden, or from garden to park. Don't forget to use very high value rewards when proofing against other dogs and people too. Its a long process but it is really worth doing well. Good luck
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Thanks everyone for your advice and encouragement! We have gone back to the beginning and I know it will return. And I'll certainly not become complacent this time. Lori
Re: Afraid I've lost recall [quote author=editor link=topic=7017.msg95800#msg95800 date=1405785757] Its a long process but it is really worth doing well. Good luck [/quote] I can whole heartedly support this having gone through it with Charlie our absconding rescue boy who now has a RECALL!! Keep going don't skip anything and you will reep the rewards 10 fold. Have you got Pippa's Total Recall which lays out all the exercises very clearly including calling away from people, dogs, food etc? That's how we did it, well worth it x
Re: Afraid I've lost recall I thought I'd share our experience to show there is hope even though I realise your dog might be very different to mine. Snowie never had good recall, definitely because I had not trained it correctly (even though we'd been in dog school since he was 3 months -- it took three schools before we hit on the right approach and values for us). He is incredibly friendly and just wants to play play play with every dog he meets. I enrolled for a Total Recall course at the second dog school, and oh my word, it was horrific. But I persevered -- I can only explain it as the Stockholm Syndrome. It didn't make an ounce of difference to our friendly boy, still no reliable recall. But what did make a difference was when a friend pointed out to me that, on our weekly walk on a stunning trail with lots of friendly dogs, children, and sometimes horses, I was the only person constantly shouting out my dog's name to come to me, whereas everyone else's dogs were making sure their owners were never out of sight. She said, Make it Snowie's responsibility to make sure he comes back to you. I also trained recall at home with treats. And at the beginning of the trail, I practiced recall and treated, and any time he came back to me of his own accord he got a tasty treat. It's now 6 months later, he's 2.5 years old, and now I don't even worry about where he is because he has made it his responsibility to keep me in his sights. It is truly AMAZING! I don't know if it's maturity that has done it. But when he runs ahead, he always stops to check if I'm following. And I only need to call his name and he comes galloping back to me. I very seldom carry treats now although we do train recall at home every now and then with his all-time favourite treat: butter! We walk off lead every day, and every time I marvel at the transformation of his recall and desire to be with me. I truly thought it would never happen. I do need to add, though, that I am not confident to let him off lead when we walk along a road with cars because I still don't trust his recall enough to know he is completely safe not to run into the road to greet a dog on the other side of the road. But there is hope...
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Just thought I should probably mention that there are no Total Recall courses associated with my book or endorsed by me
Re: Afraid I've lost recall Hi Pippa. One of the best things I could've done for my Lab was stumble across your website. The course I was referring to has no connection to you whatsoever! Thanks for all your useful articles.
Re: Afraid I've lost recall On a good note with Edsel, we seem to be gaining ground in re-establishing recall. I am using "now" as my signal and he is responding well. Once his tummy issues improve, we'll return to some real work on it when I'm not worried about tasty treats so much! Lori
