Teaching a dog to come can be quite easy if you just follow a few simple rules. Dogs that do not come consistantly is one of the biggest complaints that we get from new clients. Their dog will not come to them under any circumstances. A dog that will not come consistantly when called can be one of the most aggravating things for any dog owner. Not to mention that dogs that run off can place themselves in harms way quickly by running out into traffic, etc. A majority of the time when we talk to new clients we find that they have usually broken at least one of these simple rules. Until you have successfully trained your dog to come consistantly, follow these simple steps:

Never call your dog to come for something that they don’t like. ie. bathing, medicine, nail clipping, grooming, etc.

Don’t call your dog to come if they are distracted by something and you don’t think they will come when called.

Don’t corrupt the command. This means that you should not repeat the command when the dog isn’t coming to you. This simply devalues the command and causes it to mean nothing. If you have already corrupted the word “come”, simply change to command to “here” or another term.

Always reward your dog when they do come. Praise them, feed them or give them treats.

Make yourself more interesting than everything else that is going on. When dealing with competing motivations, use treats, toys, voice inflection to be more enticing than the distractions that interest your dog.

When teaching your dog or puppy to come the first thing that you should do is to work with them on a leash in an environment with little distractions. If you are using treats or food to teach the command, don’t feed the dog prior to training. For dogs that are a bit more difficult to teach, we have actually had clients not feed the dog at all from a bowl. The owner would simply measure out the amount of food that the dog would eat for the day and only feed it to them after they came when called. This doesn’t have to be done longterm, only during the teaching phase of training.

After you have associated the command with the behavior, move to more distracting environments. Once you have mastered this, take your dog to a park or other enclosed area and begin to work with the dog off leash. Be patient and follow the simple rules listed above.

I have worked with many clients that have had dogs that would not come. I have actually worked with rescued dogs that would not come to their owners because they were afraid of them. Even in these cases, we were able to teach the dogs to come to their owners consistently. Below is an excerpt from an email that I received from a client in Davidson, NC that had a dog that would not come to him because she was afraid of him. We worked with her for several weeks using some of the methods that I have described and even taught her the hand signal for come.

I went to the dog park in Cornelius and there were 6 to 8 dogs there. They were all together in a pack and I was 40 / 45 yards away. I called Jessie’s name (not loud) – she looked – and I gave her the hand signal for come. She came right over. Over the period of an hour I did it three times – all successful. She only had on the nylon collar. For me that was like an acid test for the hand signal. I had never attempted it in any situation like that.