Think about real world off leash where your dog is at the park or on a trail and they are having fun doing their own thing and not paying attention to you. If you haven’t trained it yet, your recall may not be as reliable as you’d like and your dog may ignore you when calling him.
When doing the recall, the hope for dog owners is that their dog will stop what they are doing and come back. For us, we are training so that the previously referred to “hope” becomes a certainty. How else would you be able to ensure off-leash safety?
To ensure certainty when off-leash, the dog is trained to respond to the guidance of their owner coupled with an ecollar. But before getting to ecollar, every owner is coached in basic leashwork.
Leashwork is the quickest way for owners to begin shifting their dog's perception if they have yet to build ecollar skills. It’s very easy and intuitive for owners to begin with proper leash handling skills relative to ecollar. Ecollar takes a weee bit more skill and takes a little time to learn.
Practicing recalls where the dog is ready and motivated to come to you doesn’t really help with reliability when the dog is not motivated. We practice the recalls organically as possible as it relates to how a dog would be distracted when doing the recall.
The dog needs to learn what the accountability is like so we let the “leash tap” do its job in allowing the dog to grasp the concept. The dog has to stop what they are doing and respond.
Accountability in the form of physical guidance is the only way to get a response “when/if” the dog chooses to ignore their owner; and a lot of dogs have a daily habit of ignoring owners, something that leads to decreased quality of life due to owner frustration and worry.
Accountability done right helps to shift the perception of the dog and how they regard their owner; the owner becomes more believable to their dog. With consistent practice the dog sees himself responding more consistently, even if he doesn’t want to, and his better response will create a better habit, and much more respect for the individual facilitating the whole thing, the dog’s owner!