Imagine the peace of mind that comes with knowing your dog will respond immediately to your call, even in an emergency situation. That's exactly the invaluable skill we're preparing you for in this episode. I’m Will Bangura, your favorite pet behavior expert, and today we're unveiling the power of dog training, focusing on a skill that could potentially save your dog’s life - the restrained recall. We're putting the spotlight on the importance of positive reinforcement and high-value food rewards. We also highlight the need to change your dog’s emotional state to address behavior challenges effectively. Harness? Check. Treat pouch? Check. 30 high-value food rewards? Check. Together, let's revolutionize how you interact with your best friend.
Ever wondered how to effectively train your dog in recall with assistance? This episode decodes the entire process for you. We're talking hallways and human helpers, building drive, marker words, and being patient with gradually increasing distances and distractions. We then delve into emergency recall training, explaining the ins and outs of this life-saving skill. And once your dog is a recall pro, we explain how to vary the rewards schedule and fade out food rewards. So, whether you’re a seasoned dog owner or a new pup parent, there's something to learn and apply in your dog's training regime. Enjoy the episode and happy training! Dog TRaining with Will Bangura
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
Imagine the peace of mind that comes with knowing your dog will respond immediately to your call, even in an emergency situation. That's exactly the invaluable skill we're preparing you for in this episode. I’m Will Bangura, your favorite pet behavior expert, and today we're unveiling the power of dog training, focusing on a skill that could potentially save your dog’s life - the restrained recall. We're putting the spotlight on the importance of positive reinforcement and high-value food rewards. We also highlight the need to change your dog’s emotional state to address behavior challenges effectively. Harness? Check. Treat pouch? Check. 30 high-value food rewards? Check. Together, let's revolutionize how you interact with your best friend.
Ever wondered how to effectively train your dog in recall with assistance? This episode decodes the entire process for you. We're talking hallways and human helpers, building drive, marker words, and being patient with gradually increasing distances and distractions. We then delve into emergency recall training, explaining the ins and outs of this life-saving skill. And once your dog is a recall pro, we explain how to vary the rewards schedule and fade out food rewards. So, whether you’re a seasoned dog owner or a new pup parent, there's something to learn and apply in your dog's training regime. Enjoy the episode and happy training! Dog TRaining with Will Bangura
If you need professional help please visit my Dog Behaviorist website.
Go here for Free Dog Training Articles
When you ask your dog to come, does it lollygag? Will your dog come to you fast every time and every time, even when there's a distraction? You're not going to want to miss this. We're going to talk about what a restrained recall is.
Speaker 2:Raised by wolves with canine DNA and his blood. Having trained more than 24,000 vets helping you and your fur babies thrive, live in studio with Will Bangura answering your pet behavior and training questions. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host and favorite pet behavior expert, Will Bangura.
Speaker 1:Would you like to go on Wookiees? Good day pet lovers. I'm Will Bangura. Thanks for joining me for another episode of dog training today.
Speaker 1:Today, I want to talk about the restrained recall, what that is, what is the process in order to teach that restrained recall and how do you maintain it? One of the things if you've listened to dog training today, if you've listened to me for any time, you'll know that one of the most important things actually the number one most important thing that I think that you can teach any dog is to have them come to you when called, and not just when things are calm and quiet and it's you and the dog hanging out in the living room and it's 10 o'clock at night. What I'm talking about is being able to get your dog to come into you fast every time, regardless of distraction. That is something that could save your dog's life. So let's talk, excuse me. Let's talk a little bit about what, what kind of tools we need to do this. First and foremost, one of the things that you're going to want to have is a harness for your dog and you are going to want to have a treat pouch, and you need to have in that treat pouch some very, very, very, very high value food rewards. What is your dog's favorite thing? If it could have anything in the world and I mean anything, anything what would be your dog's favorite number one food reward? That's the one that we want to use, why? Because the recall is so important and the way that dogs think, the way that they learn, the way that they process information. Primarily it's about creating very blind, very black and white cause and effect associations that are paired together. That's classical conditioning. And then they also learn by consequences. They learn by when a behavior is executed. After that behavior, what happens If something unpleasant happens, if that's the consequence, then that behavior is going to start to diminish. It's going to happen less and less because when the dog figures out that something unpleasant happens after the behavior, they stop doing that and that's called punishment or punishers.
Speaker 1:I don't recommend that you use punishment simply from the perspective that it's unnecessary. With positive reinforcement, with differential reinforcement, with counter conditioning and desensitization, there is no behavior that we can't stop. There is no behavior that we can't train in. And if another dog trainer, like a balanced trainer, is telling you that that's impossible, all I can say is I do it every day and I know other trainers that do it every day. They do not need to use force, they do not need to use an electronic shock collar, they don't use a prong collar, they don't use a choke collar. Those things are unnecessary in science and not just one Scientific study. Scientific study after scientific study after scientific study in peer reviewed journals have said the most effective way to train a dog is with positive reinforcement and that you have more permanence and reliability down the road.
Speaker 1:Using positive reinforcement you increase the relationship and bond that you have with your dog and, unlike punishment, you're not suppressing just outward behaviors. We work on dealing with the underlying root cause. When we have a behavior problem, change the underlying emotional state of the dog. When there's a behavior problem, change that underlying emotional state which motivates the outward behavior and the outward behavior stops. Think about a dog that might be aggressive or reactive. Right, you change that underlying emotional state of the dog of anxiety, fear, stress. You change an underlying emotional state and that association that the dog has with that trigger. That's something scary that the dog doesn't like. The behavior stops the aggression, the reactivity. There's no need for it. It's gone.
Speaker 1:Now let's get back to the topic of today's podcast, the restrained recall. You're going to need a treat pouch. You're going to need a harness on your dog. You're going to need about 30 very, very high value food rewards. They should be about the size of a pea. When you do this exercise, you should make sure that you're doing this when your dog is hungry, so don't try to practice this after you fed your dog.
Speaker 1:If it were me, I'm working on this right before feeding times. So what I do is I get a human helper and that human helper and the dog and myself go to a hallway. Most homes have a hallway and what I want you to do is, on one end of the hallway, your helper is going to be sitting on the floor and your helper is going to be holding the dog back, restraining the dog by holding onto the harness. Now you are on the opposite, far this end of that hallway, facing your dog, facing your helper, and you're trying to get your dog's attention, and you can even take a food reward and you can show it to the dog and you can wave it back and forth. What you want to do, you want to get your dog amped up. You want to get your dog amped and really, really wanting to get to you and build that drive by restraining the dog a little bit. And when the dog is really excited, wants to go and can't go, your helper is going to let go of that harness. The dog starts running in like a bullet as soon as your dog starts moving towards you.
Speaker 1:I want you to overlay and label that behavior here. Forget about using the word come. You've been using come for a very long time and it's optional for your dog. Does your dog come every time you say come? Huh, come on, be honest. Does your dog come every time you say come? Well, if you couldn't answer yes to that, you need to retrain your recall and let's put a different cue on it. Let's use the word here All right. Once you have done that the first time, the dog understands the game. Hopefully you're going to start that over again Once you with your helper, to reverse positions as far as where you're sitting, the helper is not going to be calling the dog to them.
Speaker 1:The only thing the helper should be doing is restraining your dog. So we're going to do that all over again. You go to the opposite end of the hallway, your helper goes to the other opposite end of the hallway and we've got the harness on your dog. The helper's holding the dog back by holding them by the harness. You on the other end have a treat or a toy. You are trying to get your dog amped up to want to come to you. Build that drive and when that dog is super excited, your helper let's go. And the dog starts running towards you the instant. Your helper let's go. The instant the dog starts running towards you, your job is to say here and then click your clicker or use your marker word, whether that's yes, whether that's nice. If you don't know what a marker is, if you don't know what clicker training, how to use a clicker, if you don't know what marker training is, how to use a marker, make sure that you go to the dog training today.
Speaker 1:Audio, audio podcast. You can find that on Apple podcast, google podcast, spotify, iheart. Wherever you get your podcast from, go and look for episode 80. Episode 80 is about an hour long. That goes into detail. How do you use markers in training and a clicker is a marker. But it's all about communication. It's all about helping the dog to really connect the dots cognitively as far as what we're asking the dog to do and also what the consequence is. In our case, it's going to be a big reward.
Speaker 1:Now, once you've done this and you want to do this at least five, six, seven, 10 times in a row, and you want to do this every day, take one day off a week. I think that helps to build drive. However, that day that you take off, don't engage your dog in all kinds of fun. Play your dogs. The most fun that your dog should have is when you are training. So if you're having all kinds of excitable fun and play with your dog when you're not training, please do a quick training session. Then go into all that excitable play and fun. Make that dependent upon doing some work and your process of going through training your dog is going to go much faster.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about a few things, and one of the things would be troubleshooting common issues. So sometimes a dog might hesitate to leave the helper or they might become distracted. So one of the biggest things, the biggest tool you need, is patience. Patience is key If your dog is struggling. Decrease the distance, lessen the distractions or shouldn't be any distractions in your hallway and make sure that the rewards are valuable enough for your dog that your dog wants to do this. Now, when you have a training session, always end on a positive note, all right, always end on a positive note. You want to keep this experience enjoyable for the dog and always end with your dog wanting to do more and your dog hungry. Then your dog is going to want to do it more the next time. Now, little by little, you're going to get more advanced in what you're doing. It's going to get more and more difficult. You're going to begin to increase distance and then you're going to start adding distractions, just gradually, systematically, slowly add more distance, slowly add some distractions.
Speaker 1:If your dog is failing most of the time and not winning most of the time, your distance and or distractions is too much, too soon. You need to dial that back. Work at your dog's pace that when your dog loses focus, when your dog can't do this, that's feedback and communication to you that you're moving too quickly either on distance or you're moving too quickly on distractions. You need to slow that process down. You need to introduce lower level distractions, less distance. Work on conditioning and repetition there. Longer, maybe a couple of weeks longer. Every day except for one day you get to take a day off doing this five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times in a row every day, but gradually going into more distracting environments and gradually adding more distance. Remember, if your dog is failing most of the time, it's not that your dog's doing something wrong. It just means that we're moving faster than the dog's pace in terms of learning and we need to slow things down a little bit.
Speaker 1:And then one of the things you want to do is also vary the level of restraint. Experiment. Have your helper experiment with different levels of restraint. See what happens. That might mean holding it much looser than the helper had been, or maybe holding it even tighter. Now, as we continue this process and go through this process, eventually you're going to phase out the helper Once your dog is consistently responding to the recall with distractions and at a distance consistently.
Speaker 1:What is consistently eight out of ten times with heavy distractions, minimum. Well, when you get there now is when you can begin to phase out the helper. All right, start by having the helper stand near the dog without holding them. Then progress to the dog being on a long line, 20 foot line. I'm not talking about a retractable, a long leash that's 20 foot long and that's dragging on the ground behind the dog. You can step on that if needed to prevent the dog from ignoring the recall or trying to run somewhere else. So it's kind of your safety net. Then you're going to start doing solo recall training.
Speaker 1:Once your dog responds reliably without being held. Practice the recall without the help of the long line, all right, but you need to do that inside. Any time you're outside, put that long line back on for safety Again, if you're in an enclosed area outside or inside, you're okay, but if not, if you're not enclosed, there's danger that the dog could see a rabbit run off. Until we've done enough repetition, enough work to have the dog reliable at that level of distraction, as far as once you get this strong, restrained recall, a great recall at the time that this is consistently happening at a distance with heavy distractions. Now you need to get in to maintenance mode To keep that recall strong. You're going to have to continue to practice and reinforce that behavior. Do you have to do it all the time now? No, but regular training sessions are crucial. You've got to integrate the recall into your daily activities.
Speaker 1:So, for example, I've got schnauzers. They love to bark. If you know me, you know that I don't believe in punishment, but every time my dogs begin to bark I call them to me on the recall. I go here. They come running to me. Stops the barking. That's differential reinforcement. The dogs can't be running to me and being focused on another side of the yard barking at some kind of a distraction. And so I'm constantly practicing the recall. Now, common mistakes that people make In consistency in the cues that you're using, make sure your cue here is said the same way, same volume, same tonality. Don't add words to that cue or command in the beginning or in front of it or at the end. Just here, because it's what I call para language. Remember dogs, the way they think, the way they learn, the way they process information is all black and white. Don't make it gray by throwing in a bunch of other language words and verbalization.
Speaker 1:Just say here, be very consistent with that cue. Also, be super consistent with your rewards. Always use the same recall. But I want you to vary the rewards Unpredictability to keep your dog guessing and eager to respond, but they've got to be very, very high value. The other mistake people make is they don't practice this in lots of different environments. Listen. If you want your dog to listen to you, no matter where you are, no matter what's going on, you got to start taking your dog to all kinds of different environments and practice. And again, if your dog is struggling, well, either the distance or the distractions in that environment, or too much, dial it back. You will get there. I promise you you will get there. Just don't try to rush the process Now. As things continue to go well.
Speaker 1:I want you to start to vary the reward schedule. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes when your dog comes to you, when it's called on here, it might get one reward, it might get three. It might get one. It might get one. It might get one. It might get two. It might get seven. It might get nothing, it might get nothing. It might get three. It might get nothing, it might get 10. Bury the reward schedule. Get rid of any pattern so the dog doesn't see a pattern. Your dog's going to work even harder, even stronger, but you can't go to that variable, intermittent reward schedule until after you have had permanence and reliability, with distance and distraction, and you're rewarding every time. Now you're going to begin to fade out some of that food reward, but we're actually going to get the dog's behavior, when the dog's doing the recall, faster and more reliable. So I want you guys to practice that.
Speaker 1:Like I said, the most important thing you can do is teach your dog the recall. Also, go to my website. Yeah, go to dogbehavioristcom. Go to the menu, go to where it says articles. There's about 80 different articles on all kinds of training and behavior issues. But scroll through the articles. Look for the article on the restrained recall. So not only will you have this podcast, but you're going to have some instructions written out for you on exactly how to teach, exactly how to train the emergency recall, and you'll have a dog that will come to you every single time, no matter the distance, no matter the distractions. It's just practicing. Have a great day, everybody. I'm out of here.