AS A dog owner, one of the first things you’re told is to work on recall – a skill that’s extremely useful if you ever want to take the leash off.
Picture this, you’re out for a walk and you decide it’s time for your pooch to roam free in the field or Thames path.
But there are bikers everywhere and other dogs around too, creating distractions. Now, say you try to call your dog back to you, to prevent a bust-up or an accident, but they don’t listen.
There could be a very good reason why they’ve decided to ignore your calls and now, one dog trainer has revealed one of the common mistakes people make in this situation.
Adam Spivey, the director and master trainer of South End Dog Training, simply explained: “If you want your dog to come every single time you call him, stop using your dog’s name in a negative.
“Stop using it every single time you tell him off, like: ‘Filo, stop it. Filo, leave it. Filo, get down. Filo, don’t kill the postman!’”
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He went on to share that once you’ve done this and then switch it up to saying ‘Filo, come,’ the dog then associates the name with negativity.
It means they won’t come back to you, no matter how many times you call them.
“Every time your dog hears its name in the beginning, they should be rewarded heavily for it. So when they hear, ‘Filo’ or whatever your dog’s name is, they come running, because they know that word is great,” he went on.
Adam said that when you bring a dog into your house, they “don’t actually know names the way we do”.
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“So Filo doesn’t go into the park and say, ‘Hi, I’m Filo, what’s your name?’” he continued. “They just know that the sound, that name, has an association to them.
“So if you’re intentionally creating a negative association to that word more than you’re creating a positive, that’s why your recall is failing.”
People were quick to inundate Adam, known as @southenddogtraining1 on social media platform TikTok, with questions after sharing that they have experienced issues with recall, too.
“My dog won’t come back if there is another dog. What do we do?” one person asked.
A second explained: “My dog completely ignores me when we are out when comes to other people kids and footballs”.
Another said: “Such a good reminder! It’s hard in the moment sometimes,” as a fourth shared: “Light bulb moment!! Makes so much sense!! Thank you,” followed by a praying hands emoji.
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