Do You Dream Of Your Dog Flying Back To You Every Single Time You Call? Start Here!

First published on positively.com and reprinted here with permission

What would it mean to you if you could give one call, and your dog zoomed in and arrived at your feet? Every time!

Hard to imagine? Maybe.

Possible? Most definitely!

Fun? Very much so. (If it’s not fun, your dog won’t do it. So there’s lots of fun!)

Little by little

The problem is that many people think their dog comes with a recall installed.

No! Whether a puppy or a rescue, you’re getting Dog 1.0 - the basic version. Upgrades are installed through hours of fun and games, aka force-free dog training.

When your new little puppy arrives, you may be tempted to think she has a great recall because she quickly finds you. This is just her infant clinginess.

Like a lamb at foot, the young puppy tends to keep close to her minder. Once she starts to grow a bit, in confidence as well as in size, you’ll find that infant clinginess will evaporate.

And if that’s what you’ve been relying on, you are now up the creek without a paddle.

So you need to get in early, ensuring that you use that time when your puppy wants only to be with you, to build a thumping good recall. Naturally, with a puppy of a few weeks old you’re only going to teach through games!

The secret is to keep those games going as your dog gets older, so they will always choose you over the distraction they were about to hurtle towards.

Toddler and pup both doing great recalls. Illustration from "Here Boy!"

Old School training

In days gone by (thankfully), people didn’t start teaching dogs till they were six months old or so - the reason being they had to be tough enough to stand up to the harsh treatment meted out to them.

What a trick they missed!

All those early weeks and months when your puppy is like a sponge soaking up new information!

Why on earth let your pup run wild for months learning to do all kinds of things you don’t want her to do - then say, “Right, now I expect you to behave differently.”?

So with your new puppy, start the day she arrives.

With a new rescue dog you may have a lot of history to work against. The easiest way to achieve what you want is to imagine this is a new puppy and teach the exact same way.

First things first

There are two things you need to be clear on before you start:

1. If you don’t want your dog to do something, then don’t let it happen

So if you have any suspicion your dog may run off and not come straight back - highly likely in a new rescue dog - then you need to learn how to use a long line safely (not an extendable lead) while you teach your super instant recall.

This does not mean you never let your puppy off-lead! This will not teach her anything except to want to get away from you.

Your dog must be free in order to make a choice to come back. But only let her off-lead in an enclosed area. Gradually your dog will earn her freedom in larger areas.

2. Everyone on the planet listens to the same radio station: WII fm

WII fm? That’s “What’s in it for me?”

Your dog will be making a choice whether to hare after the distraction or shoot back to you. What’s in it for her?

You need to make your recall games such fun that her response becomes automatic. And an easy way to train in any kind of knee-jerk reaction - so that her recall goes onto auto-pilot - is to use rhythm and patterning in your games.

Step by step

When you were learning to read, you were not given a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses and told to get on with it!

You were taught shapes of letters or words and their sounds, gradually slotting those jigsaw pieces together till you could hit a line of text running, read it and understand it.

So letting your dog wander off then calling her and expecting her to know what to do is just as mad as giving your toddler Ulysses.

The very first thing your pup needs to learn is that her name means good things, and only good things. You should never use your dog’s name if you are frustrated or annoyed with her. Any other word! - but not her name.

Rollo is happy to be racing back to me! An Illustration from "Here Boy!"

Here’s a simple game to get you started. Watch out for other family members as well as yourself. You may be surprised at how much negativity is being attached to your dog’s name on a daily basis!

1. Say dog’s name once

2. When she responds - by raising an eyebrow or hurtling towards you and crashing into your legs - reward her with something good

3. Repeat at every opportunity throughout the day

4. Enjoy your dog

What should her reward be? That’s something that you should be finding out if you don’t already know!

What does she like?

🐾  A run and laughter?

🐾  A piece of cheese?

🐾  A game with you and a toy?

🐾  A game of chase?

Whatever “is in it for her” is what you use to reward her response to her name.

One day her willing and instant response to her name may save her life. Be sure to take time building that response.

And for a step-by-step guide to a lightning-fast recall - every time - go and take a look at Here Boy! Step-by-step to a Stunning Recall from your Brilliant Family Dog, the fourth in the series of Essential Skills for a Brilliant Family Dog, available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. Go now, and you can be reading it within minutes!

Picture this: your dog is racing towards another dog, you call her name - once - and she spins and races back to you at the same speed, arriving with a smile on her face and a happy waving tail, saying, “Didn’t I do well?”

This can be you and your dog!

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Where did Brilliant Family Dog begin?

I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

It was 6.30 in the morning, and I was sitting on the cold pavement outside Battersea Dogs Home, London’s most famous animal shelter. Today was the day the puppy I had chosen became available for re-homing, and I was up - about three hours earlier than usual! - to be sure of getting her.

I was the first there, and I looked anxiously at the others waiting in line. We talked to each other and said which dog we wanted. Nobody else wanted “my” puppy, so I relaxed and focused on keeping warm.

Eventually 9 o’clock came round and I and the handful of other dedicated dogseekers were let in. Everyone rushed to the area they knew “their” dog was in, anxious to be there first. I reached the puppy pens and there she was, sweet and beautiful and ready for the adventure.

A few forms later, and I was out on the street again, this time clutching my precious new puppy to me. Precious, but not materially. She cost all of £9.80, including the collar and lead!

That was how I came to have Poppy. And that’s where my adventure began! There had been dogs at home where I grew up, but Poppy was the first I could call mine.

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Life with Poppy

Fresh from the streets … thin and anxious

Poppy nearly died over the next few days, having caught some nasty puppy disease, probably on the streets before the Home picked her up. But, showing the spirit for which she would become known, she pulled through and we started our 16-year love affair. The adoration was mutual.

A few months later when I moved from London to rural Ireland, Poppy helped me make new friends. In fact her bright and endearing nature and endlessly-wagging tail got her talent-spotted by a dog training club instructor.

Now a whole new world opened up before us - Obedience, Working Trials, Agility. Oh, the miles we travelled - all over the British Isles - the friends we made, the rosettes we won, the fun we had!

Poppy flies over the 6 foot scale!

The high point of our competition career was when my little Battersea stray became Working Trials Champion Flower of Battersea, CDEx, UDEx, WDEx, TDEx. Why, she had more letters after her name than I did!

Here she is scaling a 6 foot barrier in terrific style! She also held the Irish High Jump record at one stage, clearing 3 foot 6 inches.

What a long way from those London pavements! As one Obedience Judge put it: “Such grace and elegance from humble beginnings as shown by her name.”

Poppy loved everybody

… adults, children, dogs, puppies, cats, chickens, geese, goats, sheep, cows, donkeys - everyone she came across. She “didn’t have a bad bone in her body,” as my Irish neighbours would say.

Of course I don’t think any dogs have bad bones in their body, but that was rather forward-thinking in a time when blaming the dog for the owner’s shortcomings was the standard. And sadly still is, for many folk.

So I tried one dog, then I got another … and another - the story of addiction! There was no stopping me.

Since then I have had many dogs. Mostly Border Collies, but also others including Whippets - linking back to Poppy: one of her 57 varieties was definitely Whippet!

And for many years I competed with all of them - largely in Working Trials (that’s based on nosework and tracking), but also Obedience, Agility, Heelwork to Music. And we carried on the learning - scent discrimination, searching, lots of different types of retrieving, tricks …

But how did Poppy influence Brilliant Family Dog?

I decided to put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, because I wanted other people to experience some of the immense pleasure I have had from sharing my life with dogs. I started with Good for Dogs, which also served my dog school students in Worcestershire. Then graduated to Brilliant Family Dog, with all its online courses, books, audiobooks, and over 300 articles! Check the navigation bar above.

This site is more than a dog-training resource, it’s a dog-living and dog-loving site - a dog-celebration, you may say!

And it all started with my little Battersea waif, who introduced me to a new world.

Want to teach your dog to LISTEN?

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Pawprints in the snow

As humans we have a tendency to think that we know best.  

But when it comes to working with a dog we don't know best!

They have powers way beyond ours! When there’s snow on the ground you can see all these footprints. They are something that we don't normally see, but your dog is aware of them all the time - snow or no snow.

When he's sniffing and wants to pull over to somewhere and you say “There's nothing there - come on, let's go,” he's right and you're wrong!

You can see here that there’s been a late-night bunny party, heaven for your dog to check out. But normally we have no idea of all this activity. Your dog, though, can “see” this every single day.

Scent in the dog’s brain

Did you know that a third of the dog’s brain is taken up with processing scent? 😳

And look at the size of their hooter compared with ours! (That’s a normal-shaped dog’s nose - not one squashed and altered by designer breeding.)

That nose is meant to work! And in many cases it’s put to work for our benefit.

There are dogs for medical alert and seizure detection, drug dogs, customs dogs, police tracking dogs, hunting dogs, cancer detection dogs, search and rescue dogs, quartering dogs, flushing dogs.

So many useful applications of that wonderful scenting ability!

But there’s also the fun stuff. Scent discrimination in Obedience competitions is highly sophisticated, but taught - or should I say refined - for fun.

And Working Trials is a terrific way for the layperson to enjoy high-performance tracking. In the higher levels of Trials, you and your dog are confronted by upwards of 30 acres of empty space with just a pole to indicate the start of the track. The track will be three hours old, and have three tiny articles (think key, matchbox, metal bolt) somewhere along its half-mile length. In all weathers!

And with dedication and application - and a lot of hard work! - a dog from the humblest beginnings can excel. My little Battersea foundling Poppy became WTChampion Flower of Battersea CDEx UDEx WDEx TDEx.

That’s a very high level of expertise to be exhibited by both dog and handler. It’s genuine teamwork, where the dog is the expert.

Nosework in the home

It’s not necessary to walk the legs off your dog (and you) every day with a view to tiring them out. Using their brains is much more tiring!

Hunting for your lost keys, socks, or wallet is a great way to partner up with your family dog to make life easier for you, and definitely more fun for her!

Just playing hide and seek in the house is a great start.

Here you can see Lacy searching a car for hidden “contraband”. In this case it was a toy rat. You can scent this with a tiny drop of innocuous essential oil, or just with your hands. Even in this still photo, you can see her tail was swishing with excitement as she got into her task.

This post is designed to get you thinking about what your dog can do better than you can - and how you can enhance both your lives by working with your dog, and not against her.

There's so much we can actually learn from our dog if we're prepared to open our minds and look . . . and it's not only about dogs.

If you take off your blinkers (what are they called in America? Blinders!)  you'll begin to see an awful lot in the world that you didn't know was there.

 So start now by incorporating some scent games into your lives!

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Pandemic Puppy home alone

I wrote recently about all the new dog-owners who grabbed the opportunity of working from home and got themselves a puppy in this post, and I’m revisiting it because of all the questions I’m getting about it. 

People are often confused about “socialisation”, and now they’re more confused than ever!

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• Socialisation is NOT shoving your puppy in the face of every dog you see!

• Socialisation is NOT a question of packing as many strange new things into one outing as possible.

• And Socialisation is definitely NOT only about dogs!

Socialisation

Socialisation - to give it its full handle: Socialisation, Familiarisation, and Habituation - is about getting our new dog or puppy used to our world.

Getting your new puppy out into the world - to experience lorries, shouting, rain - as soon as you can, is vital. Don’t wait for injections to be done - that’s way too late! You can carry him for “arm-walks” as one of my students calls them. If your pup is too heavy for you to carry, you can borrow a push-chair, or you can park your car somewhere and sit in the boot with him beside you, watching the world go by.

Socialisation includes other dogs, sure - but it also includes lots of things people don’t tend to think about . . . until there’s a problem.

Vacuum cleaner, dropped saucepans, tv images, children, babies screaming, electronic sounds, snow, sand, wobbly planks, stairs, grooming, nail-trimming, food-toys - all these are essential parts of what your puppy has to get used to.

Separation Anxiety

And another important part of socialisation is teaching him to be on his own. It’s understandable that the enthusiastic new puppy-owner wants to spend every moment with her new charge. But this is not helping the puppy!

Just like humans, dogs need to learn to enjoy their own company. Safely! So an important part of this is to have a safe place (a crate is ideal) where you can leave your pup without worrying he’s going to chew an electric wire and kill himself, or pee all over the carpet.

Start with short absences from the room when the dog is awake. Don’t make a song and dance when you return - keep it cool and matter-of-fact. Your new puppy will be sleeping in his crate more than anything else, so it’s easy to introduce these brief exits from his space.

These short absences will demonstrate to your puppy that you will always come back. If you time them carefully when he’s been fed, watered, played with, and wee-ed, he’ll be ready for another nap anyway.

A bit of complaining is natural. What is termed Separation Anxiety is when the dog becomes desperate, ripping doorframes, losing bowel control . . . Don’t confuse this with your puppy saying, “Hoi! Get me outa here!”

Having a routine is very helpful for your new dog to understand what’s going on. That doesn’t mean rigidly sticking to clock times. It means having sequences so that each thing predicts the next step. The last step will be into bed, and you leaving.  

Nighttime routine

Oh, and to begin with, I always have a new puppy sleeping in his crate right beside my bed. You can forestall any fears by being there when your pup stirs in the night. A few soothing sounds and a touch from you will send him straight back to sleep again.

If you want, you can transfer your dog and bed to another space once you have regular blissfully quiet nights!

Full-blown separation anxiety is not that common, in my experience. And it can easily be avoided by taking these early steps to give your dog confidence in you.

And for lots of ideas to change all those things you don’t want from your dog - like jumping up, barking at the window, and chewing everything (including you) - get our free ecourse here

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Keep your Growly Dog at home!

Over here in England we are having one of our rare snow attacks. They’re sufficiently unusual to bring everything to a stop. It’s simply not realistic to spend the necessary money to alter the infrastructure for just a few days a year, as is the norm in countries where snow is a commonplace.

It’s very cold, the roads and paths are icy, there’s a biting wind … All in all, it’s keeping people at home.

And this is the perfect opportunity for you to give your Growly Dog a break!

Either you venture out into the freezing weather and enjoy the solitude, or you simply stay home and let your dog romp around the garden, dancing in the snow.

A Cortisol Holiday

Did you know that once hormone levels are raised in a fight-or-flight response, that it can take three whole days for them to go down again?

That’s one of those actual, indisputable, scientific facts I come out with from time to time!

This means that when your anxious, reactive - Growly - dog has an unpleasant incident when out and about, you should cut home straight away and stay there!

For three days.

What can you do during those days?

• Well, how about some games? I give you loads in our Academy

• How about some scent activities? Just hiding a sock to start with!

• How about some tricks? Tricks are such fun to teach and to learn! Plenty of those in the Academy too.

• And how about some R & R? Just chill with your lovely dog. If there’s been an upsetting incident on a walk, your hormones will be whizzing around too!

Remember what you love about your dog, why you got him in the first place. Enjoy his furry, comforting presence.

Walks can happen another day. Your bond with your dog can be growing all the time!

Exercise?

This is the point where people start to panic, and say, “My dog will go up the wall if I don’t take him out at least 1/2/3 times a day!”

The last time I suggested this course of action on a Workshop I was giving to several thousand people, there were many who said this.

Some flatly refused. Their minds were totally made up and they weren’t going to take any risks by trying something new!

But those who grudgingly agreed to try it (along with all those who were very happy to hear a new idea) were astonished by the results:

◆          They found that they enjoyed the “extra” time with their dog.

◆          Their dog slept much, much, more than they expected.

◆          Life grew calmer.

◆          They loved their dog again!

And when the three days were up, they were able to venture out again on much calmer walks.

And no, their dog didn’t get fat. If weight gain is a problem for your dog, you may have to reduce his meals slightly for those three days. But you should be able to play active games - even without a garden - that will use up some of his calories.

And, of course, brain work is much more tiring than walking. Trying some of the new activities with your dog that I suggest above, will result in new learning: and that will certainly use up calories!

So take advantage of our wintry weather and keep your Growly Dog at home.

And always do that after something bad has happened. You’ll find the results eye-opening.

For a free e-course to help you with your reactive dog, go to www.brilliantfamilydog.com/growly

And to get started straight away with lessons to help your Growly Dog cope with our world, watch our

free Masterclass for Growly Dogs

MY DOG CAN’T KEEP STILL – HE’S WILD ALL THE TIME!

First published on positively.com and reprinted here with permission

“He’s always leaping about like a mad thing,” Jan said, as her large young labrador Jimmy thudded her in the stomach with his paws and jumped to try and nip her nose. Jan dodged her face just out of his reach, so he resigned himself to scraping her arm and chewing her cuff. She squawked, waved her hands about, pushed and pulled, shouted . . .

As I asked, “Have you tried teaching him to keep his feet on the floor instead of saying No?” the bouncy lab spotted a new victim for his attentions, leapt to the end of the leash and started giving me the paws-in-the-stomach, nose-nipping, arm-scrabbling, cuff-chewing treatment. I stepped back - but the owner stepped forward and gave her dog more lead so he could continue molesting me! It was as if she wanted to demonstrate thoroughly how awful her dog’s behaviour was.

Check it here!

I took the pup gently by the collar and lowered him to standing. He tried to grab my wrist for a while, then gave up. He was panting heavily (it was not hot), his face taut and lined.

This dog was not just enthusiastic - he was stressed out of his little brain! Yes, it’s great to have a dog who loves people, but you also want a dog who can control himself to the extent that he’s not getting frustrated, stressed, and frantic all the time.

The Wonder of Impulse Control

We set to work with a varied training program - all underpinned with impulse control - for the dog.

And for the owner: a new way of interacting with her dog, without blame, shouting, and recrimination - all underpinned with impulse control for her!

It’s important to note that if you don’t want your dog to do something, rather than try and stop him after the event, you should ensure that the thing you don’t like cannot happen in the first place.

This may seem obvious when you think about it. But many dogs are left directionless and expected to fit into the lives of a different species, and know all the rules from the start!

We don’t leave sharp knives lying around when there’s a toddler in the house, ready to shout and yell when they pick one up! We put the knives away where the baby can’t reach them.

Double Whammy

So you need to approach any dog problem from two ends. In the first place you ensure that the undesired behaviour cannot happen, and in the second place you teach an alternative behaviour for him to choose in the future.

After a few games which switched Jimmy from lunatic mode to thinking mode, we moved straight into teaching him the wonders of a small mat.

Rewarding him first just for looking at it, then for standing on it, over a few minutes Jimmy decided that this mat was the best place on earth to be. When called off the mat and rewarded, he turned and took himself straight back to the mat and sat, expectantly - calm and alert - waiting for his reward. His eyes were bright, his tongue gently lolling. His face was no longer creased and strained. As Jan said, “You can see the wheels turning in his head!”

Part of this process is to place the rewards between the paws, right on the mat. This is what persuaded Jimmy what a good thing the mat was. When he put his front paws on it, treats miraculously appeared there!

I have to add that by now, Jimmy’s owner Jan was standing open-mouthed. She could not believe that Jimmy was choosing to sit still, waiting for permission to move, with no lead to restrain him. She was also amazed that I was not telling Jimmy to do anything - he was working it out all by himself, and once he cracked the code then he could enjoy my praise and laughter and his piece of hot dog.

Jan realised that to get a change in Jimmy’s behaviour, she had to change her own.

Up to now she’d had little idea what to do. She’d seen tv programs where dogs were shouted or poked into submission, but was quite unable to make that work with Jimmy - probably because she was a nice person herself.

She was delighted to find that there’s another way to get what you want from a dog, and no shouting or poking is required!

Matwork RULES!

Over the following days and weeks, Jan made sure to spend five minutes a day playing the Mat Game with Jimmy. When I arrived for the next lesson, I was amazed to find Jan opening the door slowly - with barely-suppressed excitement - to reveal Jimmy lying on his mat in the hallway.

It was safe to enter the house without my nose being removed or my sleeves shredded!

Jan’s ferocious determination to stick to her task was unusual. Many people just like to be told what to do - then expect it to happen all by itself. But Jan had a lot at risk. Her daughter was pregnant and she wanted Jimmy to learn how to behave politely and calmly for when her daughter visited with the new baby.

So Jan’s results were very quick. She so enjoyed this new way of interacting with Jimmy - without shouting and blaming - that she had discovered what a genuinely nice dog he is. This new-found calmness and responsiveness was pervading all their lives and was a huge change for the better.

Some people will take longer to get their dog to the stage Jimmy reached quickly. But what matter? So long as you get there in the end, improving your relationship with your dog all the while, speed is not important.

Inside every manic, stressed, dog, there’s a calm, friendly creature just waiting to emerge.

I’ve given you enough to get you started here in your dog’s transformation from wild puppy to Brilliant Family Dog.

But to get all the low-down and a detailed program to work from, have a look at Book 1 in the Essential Skills for a Brilliant Family Dog series: Calm Down! Step-by-Step to a Calm, Relaxed, and Brilliant Family Dog. I’ll take you by the hand and guide you through the steps, just as I did with Jan.

You can choose paperback, ebook, or audiobook.

Really prefer video to reading? We’ve got you covered! Watch our free Workshop here, on getting your dog to LISTEN!