Pippa Mattinson - Total Recall: Perfect Response Training for Puppies and Adult Dogs

PERFECT RESPONSE TRAINING
FOR PUPPIES AND ADULT DOGS

PIPPA MATTINSON

I am indebted to my sister, Sandra, and two daughters, Sam and Lucy, for their long hours spent proofreading and for their thoughtful comments. And to my husband, Duncan, and sons, Toby and Tom, for taking care of our home, and my dogs, whilst I immersed myself in this project.

I would also like to thank Jeff Boston, Carole Creech, and my entire family for their enthusiastic support and encouragement.

Photograph credits
The photos on pages are by Jeff Boston.

N o other animal shares human lives in quite such an intimate way as dogs. No other large and powerful species of animal is allowed such unrestricted access to our homes and families, and to the wider community, or is permitted such close contact with children and other vulnerable members of our society. Welcoming a dog into your home for the first time is a life-changing moment. Owning a dog has the potential to enhance your life in so many ways. Yet, because of the intimate way that dogs move among us, there is also great potential for your dog to seriously disrupt your world.

Dogs need to form good relationships with their owners if they are to become pleasant and enjoyable members of our society. A dog does not know how to choose behaviour that is appropriate in the human community; it is essential that his human partner is able to make those choices for him. Unless your dog is to spend his life restrained or indoors, the power to make those choices depends absolutely on your ability to recall your dog at any time. Unfortunately, for many dog owners, recall training is an art that proves far more difficult to master than they had anticipated.

Preparing to bring your dog home for the first time is an exciting experience. Each prospective dog owner has his or her own hopes, dreams and expectations for the new life ahead. The sight of your dog bounding happily towards you across the fields, relaxing evenings by the fire as he sleeps at your feet, daily walks through the forest with him trotting along at your side, these are all the kind of natural expectations you may have of life as a dog owner. It is probably safe to assume that shouting yourself hoarse, weeping with frustration over the empty lead in your hand, or silently cursing as you watch the tail end of your dog slide gracefully over the horizon for the tenth time in a week, did not feature prominently in your daydreams. Yet, for many owners of a young dog, these typical frustrations of an inadequate or absent recall are a grim reality the daily walks so eagerly anticipated are in fact about as enjoyable as a visit to the dentist.

You may be reading this book because you already have a recall problem with your dog, or perhaps because you want to avoid one by getting your recall training properly established right from the beginning. As with most aspects of life, prevention of recall problems is always better than cure. But lets face it, often we dont realise we have a problem until it is too late to take avoidance action. That is why this book deals not only with creating a superb recall the easy way (starting with a new puppy), but also with helping those of you who have gone astray somewhere along the recall training path.

We all have such good intentions about training our dogs when they are small. Some of you will have booked classes and bought books even before you brought your new puppy home. Yet all too often our good intentions fall by the wayside.

One of the reasons that many people abandon their dog training, whether they are attending classes or learning from books, is a lack of confidence and trust in the system they are using, and in the methods that they are being advised to apply. Nowadays we tend to regard our dogs as friends and members of the family. We want to enjoy training them and to treat them kindly. Yet some trainers, and some training systems, have failed to recognise this important development, and many new puppy owners are put off training their pets after observing harsh methods or aggressive handling.

Others abandon their training efforts because training seems complicated and dull, or because the results are far from satisfactory and fail to translate to the real world of walks in public places, unexpected visitors, day trips and school runs.

Training a dog successfully in the modern world requires a system that is at once compassionate, effective and fun. A dog training system must provide these three elements in order to be a success with modern dog owners at the heart of any great partnership between a human being and a dog lies an effective and reliable recall.

If you are already getting into difficulties with your dog, dont be too hard on yourself. When your dog is embarrassing you by ignoring your whistles, when he is cavorting about annoying other people, it can seem as though every other dog in the world is better behaved than yours. This is simply not the case. The fact is, despite a wealth of how to books and the availability of dog training classes in almost every village hall up and down the country, a lot of people are still struggling with their dogs. The letters and emails I receive show me that, in most cases, what people want more than anything else is for their dog to come back when he is called. Yet this seemingly simple act is a major stumbling block for a significant proportion of dog owners.