Why doesn’t the dog follow the “Come to me” command and how to fix it

It's Not About You, It's About Me: If Your Dog Doesn't Want to Play With You, You Might Be the Problem

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You've probably heard the phrase: "Life is short, play with the dog!" “Great,” you think. - I will do it!" After all, the dogs play with each other until they fall to the ground from exhaustion. Dogs also play with people, although this skill does not always come naturally. Have you ever tried to play with your dog but it didn't work? “This dog doesn’t know how to play” - most likely, that’s what you thought.

Don't be so quick to blame the dog for everything. The latest research suggests that you are the one who doesn't "know how to play." Initially, I considered this study to be quite frivolous, extending its effect only to specific human-dog pairs. But other research in 2014 found that whether a dog plays with a person can be a deciding factor in its life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the very beginning.

Why doesn't the dog respond to the command “Come to me”?

The problem for most owners is that the dog is great at calling at home or on the property, but as soon as he goes outside, he forgets everything he has been taught. Why is this happening?

There are several reasons why a dog does not follow the “Come to me” command - the presence of a large number of distractions, lack of motivation and mistakes on the part of the owner.

• Distractions. You need to understand that as soon as a dog leaves the house, it is faced with a huge number of external factors - new smells, sounds, visual objects. And unfortunately, they look much more attractive to her than your teams. For example, imagine that you sat in silence for a week and prepared for an exam, and then came to take the exam and found that chaos was happening in the classroom - music was playing, other students were laughing and talking loudly, someone’s child was running between the desks. Will you be able to concentrate in such an environment and remember the material? Hardly. A dog feels about the same way when you try to force it to obey on the street.

You should not expect the command “Come” to be executed when the dog is on the verge of a conflict with another dog or is scared (even if the threat is imaginary). It is very difficult for an animal to turn its back on danger.

• Weak motivation. To get your dog to perfectly execute the “Come to me” command, you need to reward him with his favorite treat. Instead, many owners carry old, tired treats with them, which they feed over and over again for following simple commands. For the sake of such a dubious reward, the dog will not even be distracted from sniffing a bush, let alone the situation when it is chasing a cat or playing with another dog.
• Inconsistency on the part of the owner. When practicing a command in an apartment, the owner usually rewards the dog with cheese, meat or other tasty treats, and also actively praises it. However, when going outside, many for some reason forget about rewards and believe that the dog should obey simply for the dry “Okay, well done.”

As a result, the pet remembers that nothing interesting awaits it when it approaches its owner, and next time it simply ignores the command. The owner does not understand what is happening, gets angry and continues to shout “Come to me!” To me!". When the dog finally gets distracted from his business and approaches, he is grabbed by the collar and dragged home. So she concludes - if I follow the command at home, I get a reward, but if I follow it in the park, I get the fun stopped, threats and shouting.

In addition, there is inconsistency in the presentation of the command. Yesterday you were learning “Come to me,” and today you started saying “Come here.” Moreover, for the dog these are two different commands; it does not know synonyms, declensions and cases.

If you often scold a dog that approaches you (for example, because it did not immediately obey), then you are not solving the problem, but are aggravating it - next time the dog will not come to you at all. Always behave calmly and reward your pet for approaching.

What's going on in a dog's head: mistakes when training dogs

Has this ever happened to you: while on a walk, you call your dog to you, but the dog continues to play happily or intently look for something in the grass? You call again, and again there is no response. Or you give a command, but the dog is in no hurry to carry it out. And no matter how many times you repeat your “lie down!” or “sit!”, hoping that the shaggy friend will still do what is required of him, but the dog doesn’t even listen. What's the matter, why doesn't a loyal and flexible friend obey? Maybe the dog doesn't hear you?

When this happens, avoid repeating commands over and over again, imposing your will and trying to get the desired reaction from the dog. Instead, take a step back and calm down. BoredPanda's tips should help you find ways to solve your four-legged friend's obedience and discipline problems. These problems are most common in dog training.

Work on mistakes

Despite the difficulties and mistakes made, you can correct the situation and teach your dog to respond to a command. To do this, you need to find the right motivation and practice the skill, gradually increasing the number of distractions. You should also carefully monitor your own actions.

How to correctly practice the “Come to me” command

The next time you decide to practice calling on the street, keep a few rules in mind:

• If you made mistakes when teaching recall, and the dog got used to ignoring the command or associated it with something negative (for example, you always gave the command to interrupt the game and take the dog home from the playground), then replace “Come to me” with another word, for example, “Come” or “Come here.” This way you can start learning from scratch.
• If walking is the only time your dog gets to run and play, he will act extremely agitated and be less likely to listen to you and your commands. Play with your dog during the day and just before walking, challenging him mentally and physically - this will improve your bond with him and also make him calmer and more focused when outside.
• Choose a special, most delicious treat that you will give for following the “Come to me” command. Don't use this treat to reward other teams anymore.

• As with other skills, start practicing the “Come to me” command in a calm environment - there should be no other animals, people, honking cars, etc. nearby. Once your dog has learned to execute the command perfectly under these conditions, you can gradually increase the number of distractions. For example, the next place to study would be a sparsely populated park, and only then a busy dog ​​park or street.
• If at some stage the dog stops following the “Come to me” command, there is a possibility that you were in a hurry and increased the number of distractions or the calling distance too sharply. Go back to the previous step and practice it a few more times.
• As distractions increase, reduce the complexity of other “variables.” For example, when training next to a busy street, do not allow the dog to immediately move 10 meters away from you; first practice calling from a distance of 2-3 meters.
• When practicing a command in a distracting environment, use a long leash first. This way you can control the dog and quickly respond to changing situations.
• If you plan to let your pet off the leash, for example, in a park full of other dogs, then first practice calling in similar, but artificially created, conditions that you can control. To do this, ask your friends with dogs to help you.

• Start praising your dog verbally before he even approaches but is already moving towards you. If you just stand there silently, without expressing any emotion, then the dog is more likely to get distracted on the way to you and start doing its own thing. This is especially true when you train with a large number of stimuli or over long distances.
• Never punish a dog that comes to the command “Come to me,” even if it was previously doing something “forbidden” or reacted only after a few minutes. You should calmly praise the animal and give a reward. If you see that a dog is doing something unacceptable and you need to punish it, you yourself should approach it and reprimand it.
• During training, do not give the “Come to me” command if you know that the dog is likely to ignore you (for example, when he has started active play with another dog). Instead, silently approach her, take her on a leash and lead her away.
• Enter a release command, for example, “Go for a walk,” which will act as an additional reward. For example, when your dog is playing with another dog, you can call him over and then say “Walk” to get him to return to his previous activity that he enjoys.
• Stop training as soon as you see that the dog is tired and begins to lose interest. It is best to do sessions of 15 minutes, between which take breaks for play and rest. You should only end classes on a positive note - wait until the dog fulfills the command well and arrange a break.

You should practice calling with your dog throughout your life. Each walk she should approach you at least twice on the command “Come.”

How to correctly give the command “Come to me”

It is important not only to teach the animal the command correctly, but also to give it correctly. When pronouncing a command, you must also remember some rules so that your words have an effect on the dog and do not become an empty phrase for him:

• Give the command once, maximum twice. Repeated repetition will lead to the fact that the pet will decide that it is not necessary to obey right away. If during training the dog begins to react every once in a while, stop training. Perhaps too strong irritants appeared nearby, she was tired of studying, or you moved to the next step of training, while she is not yet ready for it.
• Do not modify the voice command - always use the same phrase or word. Also, do not dilute the command with unnecessary words, for example, “Come to me, I said” - it is more difficult for the dog to identify the necessary command when you present it in a whole sentence.
• Say the command in an inviting voice, do not use an overly stern or threatening tone.

Even if your dog responds perfectly to the “Come to me” command, this does not mean that you can forget about the leash. You must clearly understand when you can let your dog run and when it is better not to do so. For example, if your pet reacts to motorcycles, then you should not tempt fate once again and walk without a leash along the highway.

Low Reinforcement Level: Are you giving your dog little reward?

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In the early stages of training, or when there are a lot of distractions around, your dog may find sniffing grass, exploring, marking territory, or pulling on a leash more important than listening to your voice and following orders. Why is that? Probably because there are stimuli that she is very interested in and to which she pays more attention.

Perhaps the dog has received very little training in the past, spending most of its life in the wild without trainers or their requirements and left with little to no training. Increase your level of positive reinforcement in the present time by giving your dog more treats during training. This will help motivate her and teach her to pay more attention to you rather than to distracting environmental stimuli.

Low levels of reinforcement, where you give nothing or little reward, can cause your dog to become frustrated and give up trying. Remember that in the initial stages of training you need a constant rate of reinforcement (a reward for each success). Only after your dog shows signs of responding well can you move to a variable schedule (giving treats for his success only occasionally).

see also

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Exercises to improve recall

Sometimes, even following all the listed rules, the call is still not ideal. This is usually due to the fact that the dog is simply bored with monotonous training, and even a treat does not save the situation.

To make practicing the “Come” command more fun, diversify your lessons with fun exercises. They will not only break up boring workouts, but will also help develop automaticity.

You can find examples of exercises in the second part of the article - “7 exercises with the command “Come to me”: teaching the dog the ideal call .

High level of distractions: is there too much going on around you?

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Dogs learn best when there are few or no distractions around you, so be sure to start training in a quiet room with little going on. Once your dog can behave correctly in a quiet place, take the next step and gradually begin to require the desired behavior from your dog in a noisier room. Then move to a courtyard, a busy street, a dog park, etc. If you start training right away on a busy street or at a dog park, your dog may not respond because you haven't yet laid the groundwork for the required behavior.

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Increasing frustration: Do you get frustrated by failures?

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Dogs understand body language and can easily recognize your despondency. When they see frustration building over learning failures, often instead of becoming more compliant, they simply shut down and stop responding altogether. If this happens, it can be helpful to ask the dog to perform an action that he knows well (for example, sit). With a mandatory follow-up reward to end the workout on a positive note. You can repeat the unsuccessful exercise a little later. It may be worth breaking it down into smaller steps if it was too difficult for your dog.

Also keep in mind that if you begin to raise your voice, especially by leaning directly towards the dog's face, then you are intimidating him. The dog will feel the need to send you signals of appeasement instead of following your commands, looking tenderly into the eyes and wagging its tail, trying to appease its owner.

Lack of training: Has your dog been trained before?

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If the person who trained in the past was inconsistent and did not monitor whether the dog followed orders, then the dog has probably learned to avoid certain behaviors and has become accustomed to ignoring the trainer. For dogs that have never been trained and have been allowed to do as they please for most of their lives, the initial stages of training are often difficult. Not surprising since this concept is completely new to them.

The trainer's job is to make the dog interesting and worthy of attention by emphasizing reward-based training methods. Read books or lectures on the subject, such as Adrienne Farricelli's Brain Training for Dogs course.

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