"come" without leash?

[whitney]

When Lucy is on her leash and I say "come", she does it with no problem. If she is relaxing somewhere in the yard or house and I say come, she does it with no problem. When she is playing with something or decides to chase something, I can say "come" in whatever voice I want, loud or soft, and she won't listen at all. Sometimes, she'll stop and look at me, but then she'll keep right on going. I know she is still really young, but is there a way to teach her to come when she is distracted or hyper? I want her to come to me no matter what is going on, for obvious safety reasons. Any ideas?

[WeLoveOur7Dogs]

Lucy is a smart girl. She has figured out that when you are close or she is on leash it is in her best interest to "come".
Get a longer leash (15-20 feet) and take her outside, practice in your yard or a close park first. Do the same thing, let her wander around - sniffing and such and when she isn't paying attention, tug the leash and say "come" - if she doesn't come, reel her in like a fish. Keep doing it. When she does come, praise her like its the best thing she has ever done.
Tell her "ok" (release command) and let her go again. Walk around, try to get her distracted again and call her in.
The more you do this the quicker she will get it. Eventually she won't need a tug when you say come.
Then eventually she won't need the line.
Practice and patience. She'll get it.

[Firetiger]

Definitely use the long leash. We use a 30 ft fabric leash, they are not expensive. Then we take her to the dog park and do recalls back and forth between my fiance. MAKE THEM FUN! Sometimes when she is really distracted she still wont come to us (still a puppy after all), but I have seen her do some amazing long distance recalls from many yards away.

[Greenmagick]

Work up to big distractions...start with small and when she does that make them bigger. Always always make coming to you the best thing in the world, and if she is in the middle of playing a good idea is as soon as she comes, release her to go play again. You dont want them associating come with play time ending.

[melisa22jo]

I agree with what everyone said. The long 25 - 30 foot lead dragging behind them is how I trained both of my dogs. To me, one of the most important things when training the "come" command is to never give the command unless you can enforce it (i.e. a tug on the long lead to bring them to you). If you call them and you can't enforce the command, you will be training them to selectively obey.

[kahluadanes]

Everyone has given great advice. The other thing NEVER call her to come to you if you will be doing something to/with her that she doesn't like..go to her instead. NEVER call her to her to give any kind of punishment..go to her instead....make coming interesting, make it a party. To start with use treats that are wonderful and only for recall.

Dale

[whitney]

Such great advice! I never thought of not calling her for something unpleasant, although I don't think we have. I have to take her to the vet tomorrow so I will maybe make a trip to petsmart and get a long leash! Thanks!

[raineth]

Hi there

I think great advice from everyone.
I have one more bit to add:
In distracting situations such as playing with other dogs, reward her for checking in with you, this will make her think that being close to you is always good. Also reward her for turning to look at you when you call her name. Use a bridging word like 'yes' to mark the behaviour.
I think this is good to practice because for her to come when called she first needs to take her attention away from what she is doing, and give it to you. So it is akin to training the first part of 'come'.


Just in case you don't know what I mean by 'bridging word':
if you call her name, the moment she looks at you say 'yes' and give her a treat. But first you will have to charge the word 'yes'. You do this by saying 'yes' then giving a treat, over and over again until she understands that 'yes' means a treat. You can use your bridging word with all of her training as well. the value of this is that it can be used at a distance, and it makes it much clearer to the dog exactly what they are being rewarded for.

[BicycleBabe]

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[lene1949]

A "bridging word" sounds similar to clicker training. Is that correct?

Yes, that's right...

What I've always done with Ben, is saying Good Boy in a very happy voice as soon as he looks at me - it always makes him come straight away...

Ben is a little thief, and there's no point in chasing him, when he has stolen my keys for example... so I call him as above, and he gets a treat for giving my keys back...

[CassieDane]

We were taught not to use the word "come" but to pick a special recall word that we only use to get her to return to us. We practice, practice, practice with that word at home (adding distractions gradually). We also found one special toy that Cassie really really really loves and we only use if for recall. It is a squeaky banana toy (loud and brightly colored)) and when we want her to come we squeak it like crazy and say her recall word. We let her play with the toy for at least 2 minutes as a reward for coming to us but that is the ONLY time she gets the privilege of playing with that particular toy. It has taught her that the only way to get to play with that toy is to come to us when we ask her to.

[Greenmagick]

The word itself doesnt matter...it could be anything. However, you do want to use a different word if the dog already know come and ignores it. Personally, I try to use traditional training words when possible, especially for important things like come and stay as you never know who may have to use them