somerville dog: a weblog

One morning a few months ago I saw a woman walking a dog off-leash in my neighborhood. The dog was trailing. The woman went home. Then, a man came out and called the dog. After about two minutes the dog successfully completed the obedience task known as "the recall," or come-on-command. Admittedly, it was a pretty "sloppy" recall. But it was a start. It is a pretty common phase that dogs go through when learning to come-on-command. They understand that they are supposed to go to the trainer, but they haven't yet figured out that they are supposed to get there as quickly as their four legs can carry them.

Incidentally, it helps dogs to get through this phase if the trainer does not repeat the command. When the trainer repeats the command several times, he or she inadvertently teaches the dog to come the fourth or sixth or tenth time she says the word "come."

When training a dog to come, the final part of the exercise is to reward the dog: the dog arrives in front of the trainer and gets treated, praised or petted. You can imagine how shocked I was when this dog, who had successfully performed a recall, was immediately yelled at and told he was a "Bad dog!"

Ah. That explains it. It wasn't the repetition of the command that was responsible for the dog's slow performance, it was the fact that the dog was punished for coming when called.