I got about 8 or 9 clean recalls with one miss this morning with Trooper along, and another half dozen or so just now (this afternoon) while I had the puppy on one end of the long line and Trooper on the other.

Bonus was that when Trooper returned to me, the puppy came along for the ride most all of the time.

Trooper is doing this far better than I ever would have expected just a week or two ago.

Sugar is typically hanging onto his TAIL.

Did the pup have anything to do with that one miss?
It's great that the pup is responding at the same time but don't let it become to much of a distraction.


Do you put the dog on a sit, leave it then call?
Don't fall into a pattern by calling the dog from the same position every time. Sometimes a sit, sometimes a down, sometimes loosed walking and just as often return to the dog without a recall.

The dog will figure out a pattern much faster then you realize your making one.

 Quote: Kristin Muntz

Our recall was sharpened up by having one person at home when the other was walking the dog, and at the time that the walk was finished (the 'return') instead of it being 'awww we're done and now we go inside' the person at home stood in the driveway with a bite wedge. (insert tug, ball on a string, etc) We come around that last corner and Duke spotted the person in the driveway with his favorite toy? Sure built some love for the recall that way.

fun fun!
i sometimes surprise my girl with secret foods, walks and guests with treats!
Nothing like sleeping, waking up to recall and BAM, my nana is here with home cooked foods!

also, i find teaching my dog to come in closer by pushing out on her creates drive for the recall. fun game.

 Quote: Bob Scott

Did the pup have anything to do with that one miss?
It's great that the pup is responding at the same time but don't let it become to much of a distraction.


Do you put the dog on a sit, leave it then call?
Don't fall into a pattern by calling the dog from the same position every time. Sometimes a sit, sometimes a down, sometimes loosed walking and just as often return to the dog without a recall.

The dog will figure out a pattern much faster then you realize your making one.

No, that particular miss was without the Sugar the puppy.

I am almost never calling Trooper from a sit, especially out front in public, but rather from various "doggie activities", sniffing, looking down the street, walking the perimeter, after I call stop at the end of the lead, or rolling with the puppy WHEN she is out there too.

(I am making sure to take each of them out separately AND together. It's kiling my bad hip but my motivation is high.)


There are almost certainly some patterns in there, just from the fact that Trooper does a finite number of things.

If anything the puppy MAY be helping me get him back -- he loves to play with her but once I call him he tries to AVOID letting her get the play going again so while he might walk off line to get around her, he tends to hurry back to me to avoid her.

It's amazing how much time I put into this in the past doing fairly "good" clicker training but how much faster is my progress after watching the first portions of quite a few of Michael's videos.

(I am not "skipping around", but rather working through each video until I get to an area that will take time but then also looking at other videos up to a similar point.)

Right now I am working alone since my wife is out of town, but coming home tomorrow.

Sugar the puppy is doing pretty well at recalls. Typically, I only get 'away from her' a few times before she starts following me around so I just switch to getting her to pay attention to me while she walks along side.


TODAY: When I had Trooper out today alone, doing recalls, I was getting tired and my hip was hurting so, when he came to me, we just went through "some of his favorite behaviors" as someone in this (or another) thread suggested.

While, I have gotten Trooper to sometimes sit or lie down while out in public, or occasionally to take a treat without spitting it back out, he was TAKING THE TREATS and PAYING ATTENTION so we were connected.

This is HUGE for us.

He's a good dog, and while I am not claiming any great training skill I do ALRIGHT for teaching in any condition where that connection is present.

He did a couple of things that I never really ask him to do in public -- SPIN (clockwise) and WHIRL (counter clockwise) but the most fun was something he has NEVER DONE IN PUBLIC:

Inside he does a great "Dead Dog" when you pretend to shoot him, so I gave him the signal and "Bang" and he did his best and most dramatic 'dying', complete with last gasp and tail flop. (It's hard to get a Golden to EVER stop wagging his tail.)

Now this is just a 'fun trick' but it represents a new level of connection.

People here (along with Michael's videos) are HUGELY RESPONSIBLE for helping us to achieve this so....

THANK YOU ALL!

You are doing great work, Herb! It's so nice when the results are posted, when someone has listened and watched and learned and then applied it all ....

Thanks Connie.

I also think it's useful when someone who doesn't (yet) "know it all" posts about how we screw it up or go off track, or life just intervenes.

It is very easy for the newbie to get discouraged or to despair when they don't immediately get the same results as Michael Ellis or some other top notch teacher.

As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure that no one has ever seen Trooper's "Dead Dog" OUTSIDE of our home. If he is 'somewhere else' he has always just been too distracted and hyped by the sensory overload.

Originally, I taught my grandkids' dog Hunny (another Golden Retriever) to do the Dead Dog as a way of getting the kids interested in training the dog -- so that it just wouldn't be "Sit", "Down", "Shake" for them.

I wanted to ensure that when the dog was sent back home to them they would continue to work the behaviors I spent so much time teaching. (That worked pretty well.)

My wife also, gets a LOT of fun by having Trooper do the "Dead Dog" for her each night when he gets his "special Green Bone" (good breath) after the last potty trip outside.

This has been one of my best motivators to get HER to participate actively in dog training.

Ditto on what your doing and there is no such thing as "JUST a fun trick". It's all about you AND the dog connecting and having fun together.
Grandkids are great! We have five and the dogs love them.
Fact is we have the youngest (8yr old boy) for the weekend WITH his Chi dog. Sisters are out of State on soccer tournaments.
We spent the day in the woods learning about woodland wild flowers and at the AKC Dog Museum.
Tomorrow is putting in lots of new flowers and shrubs in the yard.
I think Monday I'll sleep in late.

It was actually the GrandTwins dog Hunny (as in Winnie the Pooh), that got me started with modern training and ended in our finding Trooper and then Sugar (Bear).

They left Hunny while on an extended vacation, and on the way out the door our daughter said, "Please train her while she is here." (She was a 1 year old that really knew nothing except house training and how to fetch.)

So I researched and found out about clickers, and when Hunny finally went home we knew we were ready for another dog (our near 18 year old Golden "Teddy" had passed about 12 years before; we had had him as long as our kids took to grow up.)