There are many reasons that you would want to train your dog to respond correctly to your come command. Safety of course is the most important of these reasons. As your dog grows up the chances that your dog will at some point get free from its lease increases. Many dog owners also allow their dogs to run free in the confines of their yards. It is important that your dog learns how to respond to this vitally important command from an early age to avoid potential dangers in the future. As with any other training technique, the earlier you start training your dog, the more likely you are to achieve success in the perfection of the skill in the long run.
Start Small
When you are first starting to train you dog, begin training him in a place that he is already comfortable with. If you try to train your dog in a place that he is not comfortable, he may becoming nervous and defensive because he is not sure what is expected of him and he is not sure where he is. Once you are in his safe zone he will be relaxed enough to pay attention to what you are trying to teach him.
This skill will be learned better if there are two people working together to train the dog. Start close to the dog to help him get the idea of what it is you want him to do. Have the dog sit or lie in one spot and try to get him to stay there (hopefully this skill has already been learned). Have the handler go a few steps ahead of the dog. Face the dog and call for the dog to come while waving the dog to come towards you. Even at just a few steps away, be sure to praise the dog and celebrate with him when he finally comes to you.
Step further away every few times you practice this skill until you are about fifty feet away. As he comes when called reward him with a treat or his favorite toy. This may take several days or weeks to get your dog to respond to this 100 of the time. However, if he is praised and rewarded every time he responds for a while he will be more likely to succeed.
Adding Strange things to the Environment
Once your dog has mastered the come command in your own yard, try having friends and neighbors over to wander the yard without them calling for your dog. The idea here is to get the dog to the point of alert and instant response every time you call for him, regardless of what is around him or what is going on. When the dog finally does respond to the handler as he is supposed to, the only person that is to celebrate with him is the handler is all the strangers start cheering and celebrating for the dog when he listens, this may confuse the dog about who is in charge of the exercise.
Adding people that can intentionally ignore the dog is easy; adding other dogs to the mix that respond to your dog is more complicated. Have the neighbor dogs running free throughout your yard as you continue the come command exercise. This will be the most difficult distraction for them to overcome, so have a lot of patience with this exercise. Continue to reward him with treats and praise for every successful return to command.
Going Public
Once your dog has proven a mastery of responding to your call with various distractions within your own yard, it is time to take him to a public area to try these skills again. Start with a long leash letting him stray away a little bit and calling him back to see that he still responds as he should. If you have a public dog park or beach area that allows dogs to run free, cut the leash and set him free. While you should not expect immediate perfection in the public environment, he should be well enough along to learn to avoid the random distractions of being in public places.
As with any other training exercise; it is never ok to hit or otherwise abuse a dog even if they fail to complete the skill correctly. Abused dogs will eventually attack because it is a skill learned much like the come command we learned today.
Author Resource:
David Beart is the owner of the http://www.petyak.com . Our site covers pet related topics from dog training and cats to raising tropical fish and caring for birds.
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