Jacob Morgan argues that teaching recall before loose leash walking is backwards. Train reliable recall first using a marker and long line, then give your dog off-lead freedom to burn energy. Once the dog can return 100% of the time, loose leash walking becomes easy.
Chapters
The traditional dog training model is completely broken. If you go to a standard obedience class, they will tell you to teach your dog to sit, then down, and then they will spend weeks trying to teach your dog to walk perfectly by your side on a loose leash. And then they will tell you that until your dog can do all those things perfectly, you shouldn't even think about teaching recall. It's completely backwards. I frontload recall before I teach anything else. I'll put reliable recall on a dog before I even attempt to teach it a loose lead walk. Here is why. They treat dogs like they have some sort of moral comprehension, like the dog is thinking, ah, "Ah, I've walked well on my leash today, therefore I've earned the right to learn how to come back when called." Dogs do not think like that. They're opportunistic predators. They're driven by instinct, not morality. When you try to teach a dog to walk on a loose leash before they have any kind of off-lead freedom, you're fighting a losing battle. You're taking an animal that is vibrating with unspent energy, clipping a 2-meter lead to its neck, and demanding that it walk at a fraction of its natural pace. It's like taking a Ferrari, Putting it in first gear and driving it through a school zone for an hour. The engine is going to overheat. A dog that can recall is a dog that can have liberty. If I know my dog will come back to me 100% of the time, I can let that dog off the leash. I can let them run through the woods, chase smells, roll in the mud, and actually be a dog. That dog is now fulfilled. They have agency. They have an outlet for their genetic drive. Now compare that to a dog that has been trapped on a 2-meter leash for 6 months because the owner is terrified to let them off. That dog is wired to the moon. They're frustrated. They're anxious. They're constantly scanning the environment for an outlet because they haven't had one in months. Which dog do you think is going to be more receptive to learning to loose lead walk? The fulfilled dog that just sprinted for an hour or the frustrated dog that hasn't stretched its legs since Christmas? I can teach a dog to loose lead walk in half an hour. I can use food, a slip leash, turning. It's a mechanical skill. But if I spend that half an hour teaching recall instead, I unlock the key to that dog's fulfillment. And a fulfilled dog is infinitely easier to train. I see people spending months, sometimes years, trying to perfect a loose leash walk. They buy harnesses, they buy head halters, they buy special leads. They turn around every time the dog pulls and the dog is still pulling. Why? Because the dog is desperate to move. The dog is desperate to explore. You're trying to put a lid on a boiling pot without turning down the heat. If you teach recall first, you turn down that heat. Now I know the counterargument, but Kirkie, if I let my dog off the lead, they'll run away, they'll chase a squirrel, they'll attack another dog. Yes, they will if you haven't trained the recall properly. That's why I use a long line and that's why I use an e-collar. I'm not telling you to unclip your untrained dog in the middle of a busy park and just hope for the best. I'm telling you to prioritize the training that actually gives your dog freedom.
Very quick recall tutorial with Kobe. I'm here in one of our training fields in Yorkshire, so I want to start conditioning his name and then the word come as my recall term. I want to make sure I'm in position with the lead to be able to enforce my recall immediately. I'm not gonna ask the dog to recall and then wait and then wait and then wait and then make it happen. One, that's going to make the dog lead-wise, and two, it's going to give the dog all the time in the world to respond to the recall. I want to spend a bit of time on a long line, or a flexi lead for this. If you don't have the capability to push a button under pressure, don't use a flexi lead. If you can though, use a flexi lead. Got Kobe. I'm gonna very simply ask for the recall, use my special term which is going to be Kobe come, and then I'm going to make it happen with a lead or help him with the lead, show him where he needs to go as he spins around, deliver my positive marker, and very quickly he's going to get the picture. I've got no doubt. I want to be enforcing this in sterile environments to begin with, or as best as I can. I guess there's no such thing, as there will be squirrels and things behind me here. Kobe, come. Yes. Oh, same again. Kobe, come. Yes. And I want to at this point deliver my marker nice and early as he turns. Okay, Kobe, come. Yes, very nice. Can't reiterate enough how important it is to have a well-charged marker if you want this to be successful, or any dog training to be successful. Kobe, come. Yes, good boy, good lad. Good boy. And if I need to create a little bit of a distance and a fabricated distraction, throw some food out. Kobe, come. Yes. And I like to, after my mark on the recall, keep moving back, 'cause that'll ensure the dog doesn't turn really quick, sprint back to you, and then start slowing down as they get to you. So I'll give you another example of that in a second. Kobe, come.
Yes.
And I can even keep moving. Good boy. And then if we have that— and again, I'm fast-tracking the process a little bit here. We're going to spend time doing that over potentially weeks, right? But I'm going to fast-track the process here. This is literally first recall session with Kobe. He's obviously a clever dog, but I'm going to show you how important it is to have a potent marker. And as few as 8, 10 repetitions, if you've got a strong marker, you you're going to have a really strong recall. Kobe, come. Yes. So then we're ready to start throwing it into a bit of distraction. So if I'm reliable by 85% or more in my low distraction environment— garden, rented field if you need to, or an area where it's kind of low dog traffic, or wherever your dog's trigger is— then I'm ready to start advancing it, working through our check sheet and making sure that we're ticking off 85%, 85%, So on and so forth. Kobe, come. Yes. And there you go. Because the recall is an antecedent to the marker, we've got a fairly strong recall.
Once you have that recall, once you can safely let your dog off the lead to burn off that energy, the loose leash walking becomes incredibly easy because now you're asking a tired, fulfilled dog to walk next to you. You're no longer fighting their biology. Stop trying to force a frustrated dog to walk perfectly next to you. Give them liberty first. Teach the recall, drain the energy, and then and only then do you ask for obedience. If you are struggling with a dog that pulls like a freight train, stop buying new equipment. Stop trying to fix the symptom. Fix the cause. Fulfill the dog. If you want to learn how we build a bulletproof recall that allows you to give your dog total freedom, click the link below. We teach this every single day at the YCA. See you in the next one.
