May 27th, 2010
By Eric Letendre
This is the best time of the year. The weather is getting warmer, the leaves are back on the trees and it’s a great time to be outside with your dog.
Where I live, there are acres and acres of land that I can go hiking on with my dogs. I love hiking with them through the trails and fields.
They spend the whole time off-leash and get a lot of exercise.
This was not always the case.
Last year, when my wife, Rachael, adopted a little maltese, poodle mix, she was awful every time she was off-leash.
She would run in the other direction and it would take me 45 to 60 minutes to catch her.
I hate hiking with my dogs on leash. So the first thing she had to learn was the command “Come.”
It took me about two weeks, but now she can be off-leash every time I go hiking and I’m going to share with you how I did it.
The first step was teaching her that she had to come to me every time I said the command come. I did this by never allowing her the option to ignore the command.
You see, when your dog is off-leash and you call the command come, your dog has options. They quickly learn that they DON’T have to come to you.
In fact, many dogs learn that when they come to you the fun ends. Your dog is running around having fun and then you say “Junior COME!”
Junior trots over to you and the first thing you do is put him back on leash.
Your dog just learned a very valuable lesson. Coming to you equals end of freedom.
So the first step is to keep a long leash (20 to 30) attached to your dog’s collar. Now when you say “Come” you can use the leash to guide your dog back to you.
The next step…
…will be covered in my next email so stay tuned.
All the best,
Eric
P.S. If you’d like to see videos on how to teach your dog to come when called check out Dog Training Inner Circle!
Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States and has been training dogs for over 20 years, teaching regular, average, every-day owners all over the world how to get the training results they want as fast as possible. Eric is also the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Improve Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States. For more than 20 years, he has been developing dog training "hacks" that have worked for dog owners all over the world. Eric operates from a home office or a laptop while traveling and draws on his experience and passion for dog training to show others how to develop a dog that is truly “Man’s Best Friend”.
Eric is the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Hack Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
We have a dog and he is simple to train… in the house and in the yard. BUT as soon as we go for a walk he forgets we are around and even if I have his favorite treat, such as hot dog bites, he ignores me. when on his walk we have him on the long lead, we call him to come, he eventually comes or we pull him to us and he WILL NOT take the treat. He is just to distracted by what MIGHT be in the woods. We walk him daily for 20 to 60 mins, and on weekends he gets at least one all day hike. He has learned not to pull on the leash by us turning around, he has learned to stop, sit at corners, but he WILL NOT always come. Currently, I read a short article about “how to get your dogs attention” since he will not look or barely listen to me when outside, particularly in the woods. When I let him off he ran and ran into the woods and WOULD not come back, when he finally did after 20 mins. I was nice to him, pet him, praised him, and then continued his walk. So in the article it said to use treats to train him to look at you, first in doors and then later outdoors. This is what we been doing but again as soon as we are walking, we are invisible and are only a voice that he listens to so he can continue to walk. Any tips on how to get him to act even somewhat similar to the way he acts inside and in his large yard? Treats when on the walk, he takes them and drops them to the ground. No matter what they are. Most of the time he won’t even take them and doesn’t seem to care.
Hollis, your dog sounds like one of mine. I wish I could offer some tips, but I have the same problems except mine will still pull on the leash a bit when she can. She will eat the treats when they’re offered outside, but she couldn’t care less about them when her focus is elsewhere (which it usually is when she’s outside). My other dog is a breeze to train outside compared to her. I only needed to give treats and it was easy to train him to heel, and his recall is very reliable.
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