FE515: Hound About Town - Lifestyle Skills and Manners Training

1.7 RECALL - WHISTLE Cue

For this particular Whistle Recall lesson, I'm going to show you how to easily develop a whistle as a recall cue. A whistle can be a very quick way to get your recall back on track if a response to your current verbal cue is severely lacking what is otherwise known as a "poisoned cue".  Later, once you've got a good recall happening again, you can go back to further develop and revitalize your verbal cue - maybe even opting to use a NEW word (covered in a different lecture). 

A whistle is a great cue because just like the clicker it is unique, sharp and the sound travels very well. Consider if you're calling your dog and the wind is blowing in your face; your voice may not, heck definitely will not carry to your dog but a whistle will in this circumstance.  Say there is lot's happening at the park and your dog happens to be running away from you to play - a whistle will carry much better than your voice.

Most of the time recalls go downhill because they get "poisoned".  Huh? Poisoned!  Yes, but not in the normal sense of the word. Often we inadvertently put a negative association with our verbal recall cue.  We call the dog to us then give them a bath, clip their nails or administer medication and the list goes on. Worse still, sometimes the dog is called and then reprimanded when they show up.  Would you want to come again if you were called?  No of course not!  So it's our job to ensure that no matter what the dog has done we are always happy to have them return to us and if we need to do anything to our dog that we instead go and get them so we don't taint any recall cues we may use.

One big HUGE reason we don't have good recalls is, YUP, you guessed it, we give our dogs too much freedom before we have even started any type of recall or foundation training.  We take the dogs to the dog park or beach and release them to the wilds of play and wonder.  The dogs learn that being away from us, running, sniffing and chasing other dogs is totally more fun than being with their human.  Finally, when we've had enough we start trying to call them back to us.  We call over and over again not getting a response and therefore dilute any value we might have hoped to achieve with our recall cue.  When we finally get ahold of our dogs, we leash them up and all play stops.  If all play stops then why would your dog want to come?  I know I wouldn't.

So just as I noted in the NAME GAME lecture we have to have at least some foundation basics in place before we just let go of the reigns so to speak.  You don't just want to head out, unclip the leash and hope for the best i.e. start blowing your whistle and expect your dog to show up.

Recall cues can be anything you wish a word, signal (if the dog is looking at you) or even in this case a whistle. Whatever you choose as your final recall cue you need to remember that at the very beginning of your recall training the cue you choose will have no meaning to your dog unless we build some kind of association through our training.  What does this mean?  Well, you can say the word "COME" until the cows come home but unless we pair the behaviour and build the association between the cue, behaviour and reinforcement you're not going to get the response you're after.  Your dog won't respond because it's just basically "static" at this point.  Remember with the Name Game how we built up our dog's response to their name and taking those steps towards us.  This is pretty much what we'll be doing with the Whistle Recall.

Here's a video I did of Piper when she was a puppy.  For whatever reason, I could not get her hooked on the idea of coming when called on a verbal cue (go figure).  I tried all the "standard" recall training and she wasn't having anything of it so I decided to try a whistle instead. After only 3 days of the whistle, she was coming fairly reliably.  I initially took some liberty with giving extra whistle cues (not recommended) when she was learning but she soon got better in her responses and I only needed the one whistle cue.  You don't have to blow just one time, you can create your own tweet sequence as you'll hear in my other videos.

HERE IS THE PROCESS:

Step 1a - Building The Association.  Remember in the beginning how your clicker didn't mean anything to your dog until you paired it with food.  Just as we did with a clicker or marker we need to build an association between our whistle and a food reward. At this stage, your dog doesn't need to be doing anything at all. They can just be standing there or even looking at you. 

a.  Whistle

b. Then immediately present and give your dog a treat  (no clicking at this point)

c.  Repeat at least 5 X in one session, then 5 X per day over the course of a couple of days

Step 1b - Is your dog understanding the connection of whistle/food?  This is where we check to see if your dog is making the connection between the whistle and subsequent reward.

a.  Wait until your dog is close by but happens to be looking away from you

 b.  Whistle

 c.  Click when the dog or the head turns in your direction, present and give treat close to your body.

            ii - You should see your dog immediately turn his attention to you when he hears the whistle. This is your indicator that he's definitely made the whistle/reward connection.

 d. Repeat at least 5 X per session

Step 2 - Adding A Bit of Distance. Now we're really going to start working on capturing that head turn towards us by marking with a CLICK and rewarding with a food treat.

a.  Again, when your dog is standing there NOT looking at you tweet your whistle.

 b.  The moment he turns in your direction CLICK & Reward
            ii - REMEMBER to only present the reward after the CLICK and make sure that you're not going to your dog to give the reward but presenting the treat near your body so they come close to you.

 c.  Gradually increase the distance your dog is away from you and NOT looking at you before you whistle, CLICK and reward.  This continues to encourage him to come towards you.

Step 3 - Adding slight distraction, distance & some out of sight

a.  When you head to a different area you'll want to go back to working up close.  Add more distance a bit at a time before you whistle, CLICK and reward.

 b.  You can keep adding more distance so long as your dog is reliably responding (coming back to you) when he hears the whistle.

 c.  Wait until your dog is out of sight to give the Whistle cue (this could even be with your dog in another room)

 d.  The moment he re-appears, you're going to CLICK the appearance and reward close to your body.  

SPECIAL NOTE:  To increase the value of the whistle recall even further go ahead and use TURBO Treats 3 out of the 5 times you recall your dog.

A familiar area for Piper who is a short distance away 

Step 4 - Taking It On The Road

a.  When heading to a brand new location try to initially work with as little distraction as possible. In other words, no heading directly to the dog park - that's just a recipe for failure.  

b.  Gradually add distance and distractions.

c.  Whistle, CLICK when the dog's head and/or body turns towards you and reward when he gets to you with multiple treats, given one at a time.

d.  Always make sure you're practising in a safe, protected area.  I like to use a long training lead (20+ ft) for extra safety until the dog has a reliable recall.

Here Piper is out of sight with her best dog-buddy but responds nicely to the whistle.

As you progress through the steps your dog's return speed on the recall will increase and you'll be able to work towards actually calling them away from bigger/much harder distractions.

When the recall response to the Whistle cue is reliable, then you will no longer need to use the clicker but you will continue to reward him generously.  In fact, I like to often give multiple single treats (one after the other) to convey "Hey, this was really worth coming to me" -  3 out of the 5 times I call my dogs, even the old boy of 14 yrs. gets his reward for coming.  I want to really build up my Whistle recall/reinforcement bank and keep the recall solid.

You will want to practice your whistle recall often.  Especially around your home where you know, you'll be able to get a response.  Reward EVERY recall request because that which is rewarded will stay strong, that which isn't rewarded decreases and fades away.  Last but not least - if your dog does not yet have a reliable recall we need to keep them safe so please don't let them off leash.

Troubleshooting:

What do you do if your dog doesn't respond to your whistle?

1.  You may have progressed too quickly and not developed enough of an association between the whistle cue and reward.  In this case, it's okay to go back and do Step 1 for a couple more days and then gradually progress from there. We often make the mistake of jumping to the next step instead of spending the time at each foundation point. If you've been having a real issue with your recall, you can stay at each step a day or two longer than is stated.

2.  Check your environment - It may be too distracting for the current level you are at in your training so you may need to practice in a quieter location until you have a more reliable response to the whistle. When reliability comes back then add more distraction but half of what you did last time.

3.  You may have quickly glossed over or even skipped a step. Go back and review - even start from the beginning again, staying at each step a couple of days longer.

4.  Make sure the reward you have is of the highest value when it comes to the training/learning stages.  Kibble just won't cut it. Pull out that $10,000 Treat. We want to ensure it's been worth leaving whatever it was to come back to us. Later when your dog has a reliable response you can change up the reward often using a less valued treat here and there. 

Please don't start out with low-value treats and then up the anty when you don't get a response - doing that will work against you.  Pull out the big guns right from the start.

ADDING A VERBAL COME:  You can have fun with the choice of your recall cue using any cue you wish or keep it just a regular "Come" when you go back to adding or working your verbal.  The actual process of starting a recall and adding verbals is covered in a different lecture.  

** If you've previously had real difficulty with the standard "Come" cue with basically no recall at all, you might want to consider choosing another totally new word.

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