my dog’s recall worked perfectly in an emergency and it’s making me cry

[slowmotion1952]

My dog’s recall has never had to be used in an emergency before. It’s usually pretty reliable but he’s a family dog and his word for “come inside” is different from “get here now.” I’ve worked on both with him and he’s really good at coming when called when the person calling is visible but the backyard is big and sometimes when someone tells him to come immediately he doesn’t really rush over.

Today they were in the front yard which has gates and something tripped the gate. It opens completely, he has complete access to the street and there’s another dog walking, he’s barrier reactive and now there’s no barrier so ?? I’m not sure how he would react tbh.

I call him and he comes barreling over, as if coming to me is the most incredibly fun thing he could ever do. And now I’m crying and I don’t even know why.

My family doesn’t realize how much work I put into making that recall so reliable and fun for them. The amount of games I played and ran around even when my knee was injured. But it paid off, I guess.

On that note: the method of training recall by scattering food and calling your dog over to you while running away, and then giving them a greater reward + praise like they just fought off a cougar when they reach you? Good method.

Hide and seek? another great method.

 

[caleb_f]

@slowmotion1952 I had a similar experience.

Dog had a soft stool so I brought her inside to wipe her down. While washing my hands I left her go run around the house.

After I clean up, I see she's not in the family room. I check upstairs since I left the barrier gate in the kitchen open, no big deal, mainly a carry over from puppy days.

Except she's not upstairs either.

So I go to check the family room again. That's when I notice I left the sliding door open. My heart dropped. I ran out onto the deck and I didn't see her. I yelled out her name and there she was in the yard (no fence).

I said oh hi! But I didn't move. She went straight into a play bow, so excited to be off leash.

We had done a little off leash training but never at home because of some territorial issues, and she gets too excited. We always practiced it at our trainers house.

But I remembered not to chase, so I yelled treat and ran playfully towards the house like she was about to miss out on something great. She ran right after me, all the way inside.

I didn't seem mad or angry that she ran outside, it wasn't her fault. Instead I acted like she was the best girl ever because she was! She stayed in the yard, she listened and came inside. So many treats, a belly rub, and a nice long walk for not running away and for coming back inside.

On the inside though, I was terrified.

 

[prayingwarrior]

@caleb_f I had something similar happen to me a few days ago. My apartment complex has a small dog park. It is lined by bushes and behind the bushes is a metal fence. My pup loves to chase the squirrels in the bushes and up the trees, so when she ran into a bush I thought nothing of it. Until a minute later and I realized she hasn’t come back out of the bush.

I call her name and she is nowhere to be seen. I walk over to behind the bush and there is a large hole in the fence! My pup is small and it wasn’t enough time for her to cause it, clearly some other dog or person did but I had no clue it was there because it was behind the bush. My heart sank because the other side of that fence is a main road. And there she was standing in the middle of the road.

Now my pup’s recall is not perfect. It’s about 75% we are still working on it. She usually comes but sometimes she decides to stop and sniff something on the way lol. But that morning. I called the word and she looked up and trotted over to me with a huge smile on her face. As if she was saying “oh hi mom! There you are! I was sniffing something really cool!” She ran back through the hole in the fence and right to me. I picked her up and clutched her to my chest and sobbed. I was so lucky that she didn’t get hit by a car. And that she came to me right away. Obviously it wasn’t her fault and I wasn’t mad at her at all. She most likely didn’t even understand she had escaped, she thought it was just a new place to explore. I was just so relieved she was ok. I will not be taking her back to the park until they fix the fence and I will make sure to check the whole fence every time we go.

 

[meshel21]

@prayingwarrior This happened with my (then 2y Shiba Inu) when my family was helping me move apartments during college. I was at the old place grabbing more boxes and my family helping unload boxes at the new place accidentally let my dog slip out the back door which opened up to the entire apt complex courtyard.

They panicked and chased him around before my dad grabbed the car keys and pretended he was leaving. My dog did NOT want to get left behind at this new and strange place, so he jumped right into the car. Everybody had a beer in hand and was catching their breath by the time I returned because it scared them so badly

 

[blown]

@meshel21 My husband let a shelter dog off leash in the front yard two days after we got him. As he was “looking chill” after their walk.

Surprise, dog ran away.

Luckily he was happy to sniff around our neighbors’ yards, as long as my husband stayed outside a 10’ radius, until I got to them with the car. I opened the back and called him and the good boy ran right over and hoped in for a fun trip.

 

[nebula1]

@caleb_f I had a fucking panic attack a few weeks ago in a similar situation. Thought I closed the front door behind me to shovel the front walkway after the first snowfall of the season , but I guess the latch didn’t lock in. All of a sudden to my right I see something big and black catch the corner of my eye and I see my 60 lbs bernedoodle go into a play bow like he’s ready to lunge in my UNFENCED front yard right beside a street with cars… and oh - he’s reactive to squirrels too.

He was so happy to be unleashed in the snow - he was raised as a puppy in winter so it’s his favourite thing. He had a few frolicks before I saw him.

Immediately felt a sense of panic but let out a booming “stay” and his entire demeanour changed when he realized dad was NOT in a play mood and he froze - thank goodness. Grabbed the idiot by the collar and we walked inside together. So glad he didn’t see a squirrel out there - always double check your doors!

 

[bkenyo]

@nebula1 Definitely always double check your doors. A few years ago on first super cold day of the year, I was shoveling, brought the dogs in the house to go talk to a neighbor. Door didn’t latch and my dogs took themselves for a walk, on a main road and crossing under an expressway, on ramps and all. Thankfully they were chipped. Several different people corralled them and called the chip company. Had them back after a very stressful hour.

PSA 1 - Always double check your doors.

PSA 2 - Get your animals micro chips if you haven’t already and REGISTER the chips. You will be glad you did.

 

[elinus]

@caleb_f God it’s so hard to stay calm when your dog is doing something dangerous and they play bow about it. That just ups the stakes so much because they will want to keep doing it. Kudos to you!

 

[alisonm328]

@slowmotion1952 Congratulations.

How does the hide and seek method work?

 

[slowmotion1952]

@alisonm328 Thanks! The AKC can explain it better but it’s pretty much just getting your dog to stay/having someone hold them and going to hide in another room. Call their recall word and then praise when they get to you.

 

[alisonm328]

@slowmotion1952 Neat, I am definitely going to try this

 

[danyyboy]

@slowmotion1952 Well done!! A trainer taught me to also have an “emergency down”. This is a description of an emergency stop that is similar if you’re curious. Emergency down worked better for me than emergency stop.

 

[danyyboy]

(I found it really fun to train)

 

[lovemylord]

@danyyboy Ooo how do you teach this?? Anytime I try to teach my dog to lay down from far away he always comes right to me and then lays down and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong

 

[danyyboy]

@lovemylord Haha, yeah, they already know how to be good dogs so that’s their first instinct. Check out step 3 in the link above. The important part is starting to train it just a few steps from your dog. If you want emergency down instead of emergency stop, add luring the dog with a treat into the down position - don’t use their existing down command. I also cue it to a hand signal that’s visible at a distance, basically like a an enthusiastic student raising their hand.

 

[becky77]

@slowmotion1952 Awww congratulations for you both, it's really difficult some times, but dogs are super smart once they actually have learned something. So glad you both can communicate with such joy

 

[chrisleeds]

@slowmotion1952 Great work! Recall training is so difficult, you did well

 

[augustcomposure]

@slowmotion1952 Our dog and our old roommate's dog (we still have her over often) both got out of the backyard the other day for an unknown amount of time. When my fiance bolted out into the snow in his bare feet, our pup came back within seconds of him calling her name with her tail tucked like she knew she shouldn't have gone out the gate. The other pup had gone further away and took longer to come back, but she came sprinting back like a happy bullet too!

It's been several days, but we're all still riding the high of how proud we are over their recall response. One year ago, I'm not sure it would have been such a quick resolution, but they've grown up so much.

Congrats on your hard work paying off and your pup's safety!

 

[ruthy85]

@slowmotion1952 As someone who is constantly fighting the recall thing and does not get it to work well.... huge congratulations, very very nice!

 

[mocast83]

@slowmotion1952 I had a trainer help me with this once. We taught my dog “come” with regular treats but if he came to the word “now” he got hot dog chunks. “Now” was always associated with hot dogs and hot dogs were only given with “now”. If he got lazy with “come” because something was distracting him, a “now!” Would get his attention.