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BarkingMad is the website of Dogtown South Africa PTY LTD A section 21 not for profit
Company 2009/015936/08
NPO: 9300 32491
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COME WHEN CALLED
Have someone hold your puppy, show pup your YUMMY treat and then move away from your puppy.
Start in an enclosed area with no distractions. Bend down and wriggle the food in front of you towards the puppy and call your pup with a happy and excited voice “pups name, COME” Praise your puppy the whole time he moves towards you, what a good boy you’re such a clever puppy. When he reaches you give him a huge hug and your yummy treats, make sure you can gently handle his collar while he is with you in case you would need to quickly put him on leash, then release the puppy with the command “GO PLAY”
We are establishing a pattern here. When I say come and you move towards me really good things happen. Remember to ALWAYS say the word “COME” in a happy excited voice that your dog will want to come to you, never say “COME” in anger. We don’t want our pups to be fearful of coming to us.
The faster the puppy comes to you the bigger the reward should be. He will quickly learn that the quicker he gets to you the better the reward.
Start to use everyday opportunities in the home to practice like when it’s feeding time, while you are cooking dinner.
Repeat this exercise until you see he is coming 10/10 of the times.
Once we have the “COME” understood by the dog we up the criteria, this means when he is coming to you 10/10 times in your enclosed area.
We increase the criteria by:
1. Increasing the distance,
2. Adding distractions
3. Changing the environment.
REMEMBER ONLY CHANGE ONE CRITERIA AT A TIME
Ie: If you are increasing distance don’t have distractions at first and don’t start this new criteria in the park.
Once you have managed to increase the distance in a safe enclosed area, start adding distractions but decrease the distance. Slowly build up the distance again.
Then it’s time to take the show on the road. We are now changing the environment, so distance and distractions must go back to their 1st steps. We will now start to increase our distance 1st in our new environment. Once we have our “COME” at a distance in the park we will begin to add distractions, once again as we will now take our distance back to the beginning stage and slowly build up the distance with distractions.
ALWAYS make it an incredibly enjoyable exercise for your dog. NEVER shout or reprimand your pup if he doesn’t come just lower your criteria to last point he was successful and build up again slowly. ALWAYS put SAFETY FIRST, when you move to different environments, work with your dog on a long lead at first, so there is no chance your dog could run away.
This is one of the most important exercises your dog can learn, and it can be life saving.
Happy safe training.
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