Touring the Core: Total Recall - a podcast by Ty Brown

In today’s post, I want to talk about a very important subject in dog training: core behaviors.

I’ve found over the years that there are three of these “core” behaviors. If a dog does these behaviors, and does them well, then we can manage or solve 95% of the things that bother the owners about that dog’s behavior. Those three behaviors are: coming when called, staying when told, and walking properly. We might achieve these behaviors through various commands, but those three concepts are absolutely critical. With mastery of them, your dog can manage almost anything.

I want to dedicate my next few posts to these core behaviors, because nearly every dog I meet has a merely rudimentary understanding of these behaviors. Perhaps he will come, but not very well. Perhaps he will sit, but not stay. That’s not very useful. When the time comes to apply that obedience to aggression or manners, then the dog won’t behave in the presence of distraction. In this post, I want to discuss things you can do to get your core behaviors down better.

If your dog comes when called reliably, a lot of problems go away. You can call your dog away from the door when someone rings the bell, prevent your dog from barking at the window, and get rid of aggression. This concept is huge! I like to teach two different types of recall: casual and formal. I use two simply because most people tell their dogs to “come” fifty times a day. We say it all the time. That’s fine, but anything we say that often is going to lose some of its meaning. We won’t be reinforcing it all the time, so because it’s used all the time it will become lax. I allow that with my casual recall. Teaching this recall is vey easy: I call the dog, then give him lots of rewards of food and praise. I do this over and over—simple.

But here’s the problem: the casual recall probably won’t be good enough to overcome real problems. Your dog will probably really enjoy coming when called, but when the chips are down you can’t count on that behavior. When the dog has to choose between obeying commands for a treat or chasing the cat, then the dog will usually go after the cat. That situation calls for what I call a “formal recall.”

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