Can Your Dog Come When Called? Part 1

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If there’s one skill that can literally save your dog’s life — it’s the come when called (or recall) skill! This begins a four-post series on that skill.

This week’s post is about my now nine-year-old golden retriever, Eagle, and the evolution of me as a trainer with this skill. Eagle is my fifth dog as a trainer, so I had plenty of time to hone my skills as trainer before he came along. Eagle is an easy-going dog and very willing to please. For some reason, however, he just didn’t get the fact that he always needed to come back to me. He’s never bolted but he would just merrily go where he wanted, when he wanted, never worrying about the consequences.

Shortly after I moved to New York State in August 2006, Eagle merrily went where he wanted — right into school traffic in the rain one morning. Thankfully, I was living in  a small village and the the traffic — even at the busiest part of the day — was light. Had I lived in a busier area, I definitely would have lost him to a car accident as the visibility was poor.  In the next several weeks, I’ll detail what skills I taught Eagle and how I FINALLY taught him a skill that I feel can safe his life! That incident was the first of two wake-up calls Eagle gave me. I now knew that he had a major hole in his recall training — and it could have cost him his life!

Have you ever had a brush with death with your dog?

 

 

 

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