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Teaching your dog to 'come'
How often have you see owners in the park shouting at their dogs to 'come' and being ignored?
The owner then resorts to chasing after the dog, who thinks "this is great fun!" and runs away. I don't know about you, but I've yet to see a fleeing dog chased and caught by a running man! Next our owner, out of breath and out of control then begins to shout at his dog in a threatening manner…"If you don't @?%# come here I'll @?%# you!". Well would you return to someone behaving like that? Not likely!
Next our owner tries a softer approach…"Fido, good boy, come"…repeated several times through gritted teeth. Unfortunately, as Fido responds to tone not just words, he keeps his distance. Our owner then walks home with Fido following at a discreet distance, eventually reuniting himself with his owner when he thinks its safe. Then what happens. Fido either gets shouted at, shaken or worse still hit by the owner for returning, thus ensuring the above scenario occurs on their next walk.
Well, the good news is, if you teach your puppy to 'come' at an early age this problem can be avoided.
So, here are a few tips!
1. You'll need to decide on the command you will use and stick to it, "come" or "here" or any other single vowel word will do and should be called in a pleasant tone. Sadly, we cannot have detailed conversations with our dogs when we are training them so "Fido, there's a good little doggy, come over to daddy" is out.
2. Puppies do not like being left on their own, so when you leave the room they will want to follow you. You can use this opportunity (and any other when the puppy runs towards you) to give the command "come". Once the puppy reaches you (and only then), give it plenty of praise both verbally and by petting.
3. All dogs love the game of chase and you can use this game to your advantage. Take your puppy into a safe open space and then run away from him, when he starts to chase you (and he will!) stop, face him, open your arms and give the command "come". When he reaches you give him plenty of praise as before. Alternatively, if there are two of you, one can hold the puppy whilst the other runs off. This way you can gradually increase the distance before letting the puppy go. If the puppy stops or goes in another direction, just run a bit further to attract your puppy's attention, or shorten the distance.
A quick word of warning though, puppies like chasing but they also like to be chased! You should avoid chasing your puppy as through this game you are teaching your puppy to run away from you. I'm sure you've seen dogs just staying out of reach of their owners - just as their owners move towards them the dog runs off ducking under the outstretched hands. Owners have probably unwittingly taught their dogs to do this through the game of chasing their dog.
Try the exercises several times a day (be sure to end each exercise while the puppy is still enjoying it) and you'll soon have a puppy that responds to your 'come' command!