Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  You've got more training to do and after a few more months of training, don't give a treat every time because that is what teaches the dog to expect it and not to come if he sees it's not there. The best way to train a dog is to treat every time but then after some basic training has been established, request that they learn to work for "probably" and it heightens their expectation and hope - things dogs live for. They love to anticipate and wonder what is about to happen. But for now, I would just keep giving treats for the completed recall each time the dog comes until you have been training him for about seven months, then skip to the "probably" mode for the rest of a year of training. That's how long I trained Tibbe with treats every time and then I began to leave them off but just rewarded him with a happy dance, lots of praise and a great deal of excitement when he came to me.
I would set him up for success - do things to make him really want to come when I wasn't going to give him a treat - such as crouching down to the floor, turning around and looking over my shoulder, lying down on the ground/floor and singing/kicking my feet or getting something to hold and looking in it as I called him. I would hold and squeak a toy and toss it for him with praise as soon as he came to me - all things that made him curious and actually want to come to see what was happening or going to happen once he got to me. He loves used dryer sheets. I'd hold a dryer sheet & call him. So each time I called him without a treat there was some real reason established for him to want to come to me. In about a year's time, he learned that coming was just plain automatic - no ifs, ands or buts. He just had learned to come for the treat or the curiosity/celebration or inspection of whatever I had and it just taught him over the many months to just do it. Now he comes first time called every time 99 99/100% of the time. If the neighbors are out eating on their patio or a cat is in the ally, he may stay out until I firm up my call or show him my closed hand(which might contain a treat or toy) or take a step toward him. If I take a step toward him, he knows he is about to be herded in.
I herded Tibbe into the house during his training when he was being stubborn at times. He knows that if he doesn't come I will go out and herd him inside and he really doesn't like that for some reason. I just get behind him and don't let him go anywhere without my keeping up with him and walking closely behind him until he begins to run inside to stop me doing it. So he has that impetus to come too, though I only actually had to do that one-half dozen times during his training when he was still trying out his stubborn streak. But he hates being herded and hurried from behind and he hates that I can actually cut him off and come after him wherever he goes and herd him in so if I step toward him after calling him, he knows a herding is about to happen and will come running. He knows I won't stop until he goes in the house. And then he always gets a treat or toy or play session.
But I only went to teaching him about herding after he had learned to trust me completely - another training technique it sometimes took almost an hour at a time to teach. I'd actually lie on the ground and just wait until he would come to me and then treat/reward him but not reach for him or take him inside immediately. We'd just lie there together and in time, he'd come closer and allow me to take him or pet him and play together and eventually say we were going in for "a treat" and he would follow me in. It was slow, unhurried and no pressure.
We had to go through this because he was 9 mos. old when I got him, trusted no humans, had spent his whole life outside in a covered cage and was kennel crazy with no socialization skills at all. He feared all things just about - people most of all - so he had to learn trust me first and trust that coming to me was something he did voluntarily and under no pressure at first. We worked on trust for the first 3 months I had him. He would stay across the yard from me and run if I approached him so I had to teach him the trusting, no-pressure, voluntary approach and reward system first. That's how he learned he could trust me and he was NEVER reproached if he veered off at the last minute and ran away back across the yard. I just had to wait until he would come voluntarily and despite my desire to grab him up and go inside to get out of the rain or sun, I'd just wait and allow him to lie by me and chill, learn to trust nothing bad was about to happen to him.
When he first got here, this is how we stated training "Come". I would just sit with him right beside me or in my lap and say "Come" and treat him instantly. Over and over. He quickly learned that the word "come" meant an immediate treat. After a couple of weeks of that, I would move a way from him and say come and hold out the treat and he would have to come to me to get it. I moved father and farther away but each time he would come to get his treat - however far he had to come to get what he considered his due. After all, "Come" meant treat and he wanted his "paycheck". In time we moved the whole thing outside and I would sit on the porch with him beside me/in lap and say "come" and treat him immediately and eventually moved farther away, etc., just as above but this time, outside. So he learned that he had to travel a ways to get the treat that "come" meant, whether inside or outside.
Still, after many, many months, I would not give him the treat but used one of the above techniques I mentioned above to entice him to come and yet still have a type of "reward" for him - something good or interesting happened once he got to me even if it wasn't a treat. So in time and by the time he'd been trained for a year, together with the herding sessions after about several months of "come" training, he just automatically learned to come to me when called. It's now so trained in him he can't not come but once in a great while, if something very exciting it happening out in the back, I have to call a second time, show him my closed hand as if there is a treat in it or step toward him as if to start a herding session - and he comes running. It was lots of work and took a while, but my little kennel-crazy, untrained dog learned to come each and every time. |