Recall - Getting ONLY the dog who is called to come?
I've got three dogs. They all respond to their names and will all come when I either use a generic "Come" command without a name, or if I say "Dogs!". However, a lot of the time I will call one dog and get two, or all three. I don't care for this at all since I usually only want the one dog for a reason, to look at teeth, trim nails, etc. I don't want a bunch of extra dog to be milling about while I try to work with the one dog. It's usually easy to just send the extra dog(s) off, unless food or treats are nearby or I am in the kitchen (where I examine teeth due to the lighting) then it's nearly impossible to get them to leave since they will just turn around when they get X distance away and come right back.
Anywho, how do you go about training ONLY the called dog to come? Not reinforcing the uncalled dog doesn't work at all, so that is out, and working on recall alone doesn't address the issue either.
Anywho, how do you go about training ONLY the called dog to come? Not reinforcing the uncalled dog doesn't work at all, so that is out, and working on recall alone doesn't address the issue either.
Comments
This is what has worked for me. I start with just 2 dogs at a time. I put both is sit stays relatively closely to me (within a few yards). I clearly call out "Kuma come". If both dogs come at the same time, I tell Kuma he is good and pointedly look at Sachi and give her a verbal "aht" and put her back in the place she started without repeating any commands and give Kuma a reward/treat, but not her. And then I try again, same routine. If Sachi moves, she doesn't get the treat and she gets a verbal discouragement ("aht"), and she gets put back in her original spot (without repeating the command). Usually by the 3rd time, the dog will begin to realize that when I say "Kuma come" only Kuma gets the treat and she (Sachi) does not if she moves. If she keeps her butt in place, then she get a treat.
Then I do the reverse with calling "Sachi come" and see if Kuma remains in place. Rinse repeat as above. When they can do this relatively reliably within a few yards of me, I then move the distance farther away. If they seem to forget how to do it when the distance is too far away, I back track to a closer distance until they are good with it again, then try the further distance.
As each gets better, pretty soon you can add the 3rd dog into the mix (but not until the 3rd dog has learned it in the "pairs" situation).
Some dogs are harder to teach this exercise. For instance, it was easy for Kuma to learn, but hard for Sachi as she wanted to obey any command I gave her, even if that command was not proceeded by her name. I just had to be consistent, put her back in the original position if she broke, and give her a verbal discouragement for breaking, and not treating her until she stayed in position. She is very food motivated and quickly figured out that she didn't get a treat if she responded to a command that was preceded with "Kuma" and that she did get a treat when it was preceded with "Sachi".
Once they get the idea, it can work pretty well. I know in my dog training club, sometimes I do both side by side staying and then recall one at a time. They both have learned to wait until their name is called with the command. The only downside of this is that they sometimes "ignore" a general command because their name was not in front of that command. But if you break it down into small steps, even a Nihon Ken can learn how to do it.
Edited to add: if you have taught the "wait" command, you can use that as well, so that if I call Kuma and Sachi breaks, I can go 'uh uh, wait". I use all of those methods, but it is baby steps at first.
@Edgewood Hmm, that sounds like it should work. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. Thanks!
Awesome how the other dogs just wait and watch...