Training & Behavior

There's a moment every dog owner knows, the one where you call and your dog very clearly hears you and very clearly does not care. Mine happened daily, at the park, near the oak with the fat squirrels.

Rufus, a springer with the attention span of a goldfish in a storm, would be off the second a squirrel twitched. I'd shout his name, he'd flick an ear, and that was the entirety of our communication. The squirrels won, every time, and I'd stomp home feeling ignored.

I read somewhere that recall fails because the owner is boring. Harsh, but not wrong. I was standing still, shouting, offering nothing. The squirrel was alive, fast, and full of mystery. Of course he chose the squirrel.

So I changed the game. I started carrying the good treats, the ones that smell like liver and cost too much, and the moment he looked away from a squirrel I'd run the other way, whooping, and let the treat appear like magic when he caught up.

It felt ridiculous. People at the park glanced. But Rufus, who'd never once come back for a plain call, spun around for a running human with a snack in hand. Within a week he was checking in on his own, glancing back every few metres to make sure I was still the most exciting thing nearby.

The trick was never the treat, really. It was me moving, being unpredictable, being worth watching. Dogs don't recall to a statue. They recall to a chaos they want to be part of.

Now I keep a tennis ball in one pocket and the liver treats in the other, and the squirrel oak is just another tree. He still loves the squirrels, he's a springer, but he loves the game with me more, because the game has a payoff and the squirrels have never once thrown him a biscuit.

We practice in the garden too, short bursts, so the habit holds when the park gets busy. Five minutes, three recalls, huge praise, done before either of us is bored. Consistency beat volume, which is the opposite of how I'd been doing it.

I won't say he's perfect. A deer still breaks his brain, and a cat at full sprint is a lost cause. But the everyday squirrels, the ones that used to own him, lost their grip the day I decided to be less boring than they were.

There was one squirrel in particular, a bold grey one who'd sit on the low branch and stare Rufus down, practically daring him. For weeks that squirrel owned my dog's brain. The day Rufus finally chose me over the stare-down, I celebrated like we'd won something, which I suppose we had.

I built up slowly, practising the running-recall in the garden first, then on quiet paths with no squirrels, then near the oak but at a distance where the treats still won. You can't compete with a squirrel at point-blank range on day one, and expecting that is how people give up and decide their dog is stubborn.

The running felt absurd at first, me sprinting away from a springer in a public park, but the dogs there knew the look, the look of someone mid-training, and mostly they smiled. One old man said his collie had been the same, and that the day his dog chose him over a rabbit was the best day of his year, which I now fully understand.

These days the recall holds even near the oak, because I kept being the interesting one, kept the treats unpredictable, kept the game worth playing. A deer still breaks his brain, and a cat at full sprint is a lost cause, but the everyday squirrels lost their grip the day I decided to be less boring than they were.

The proof, the real one, came on a grey Tuesday when the bold grey squirrel dropped to the ground right in front of Rufus and just sat there, taunting, and Rufus glanced at it, glanced at me, and chose to check in, tail wagging, treat earned. I didn't cheer, I've learned not to, just marked and moved on, but inside I was triumphant. The squirrel had lost, finally, not because I'd forced it, but because I'd made myself the better bet, and that's the whole game of recall in one small moment.

The habit has spilled into the rest of our walks now, the running, the unpredictability, the sense that I might produce a treat or a game at any moment, and Rufus stays nearer than he ever did when I stood still and shouted. He checks in without being called, loops back to see what's next, and the lead stays loose. The squirrels are still there, still smug, but they've lost their hold, and the dog who used to ignore me now checks to see if I'm the better offer, which, finally, I am.