Is your dog ignoring you?

Does your dog’s hearing magically fail when you call them back when outside? They’re great at recall in the backyard and suddenly in a new environment they don’t want to know you? Pretty hard not to feel frustrated and dismissed – why is my dog deliberately ignoring me?

The thing is we often underestimate how powerful and intoxicating the natural environment is to dogs. When we see a patch of long grass and dead twigs, our dogs experience a fabulous smorgasbord of scents and new textures and surfaces. Consider that a dog’s olfactory area in the brain is 40 times larger than ours. When they’re ground scenting they can sense the odours of unique dogs, humans, cats, rats (you name it). They know which direction the animals or humans travelled, by comparing the freshness of the scent in both directions. No wonder their nose can lead them away from their owners!

When they don’t return they are not being naughty. It’s just that their brain has been captured by the heady excitement of all that sensory information.

So what can we do?

1) We work on relationship. We build a connection so that you are truly important to the dog, not just the person at the other end of the leash.

2) We work on management. Dogs that are shaky on outdoor recall benefit from being on a long-line. Why continually practice failure of that recall? Instead, we practice continual success utilising a long line.

3) We make the recall valuable and a gateway to better things. How many times do owners call and call a dog getting more and more frustrated until when the dog returns, they tell it off in a stern voice? Who wants to come back to that? But wait – what if the recall was the first step in freedom or an exciting game. Maybe coming back is worth it after all!

Every dog is different and often a trainer can help get the balance of approach right for your dog.