Recall Training

The art of getting your dog to come back.

Recall is one of the most basic commands and behavior your dog should learn. It's more important than sit or stay. Recall training is also very easy if you do it right, and start when they're young. It can be a monumental task to teach recall to an older dog, or even an older stubborn puppy. This page will go over what we do to "train" recall with our puppies, and a few videos with what you can expect results to be like.

One of the largest hurdles to accomplishing any training task, is to get an accurate perspective on what your trying to accomplish, and what the Doberman puppy thinks is happening. Dogs don't do things at random. There is ALWAYS a reason for what they do. Keeping this in mind, if you were a puppy with a brand new human you've never met, what would make you choose to come to your new owner, rather than some other puppy activity? If you were that puppy, and the owner was saying sternly, "Come here!", you would go do something more fun! Why would you go to the human who has nothing for you? Now imagine you were the same puppy, and the owner crouched down, and excitedly said, "Come here!" with open arms. You would go running as quick as you could do get attention! In the beginning stages, you have to have the mindset of, what am I offering for my European Doberman puppy to come to me, compared to what's around them? You need to be more fun than the other options.

This doesn't mean that your Doberman puppy needs a whole hot dog, or a bully stick every time you want them to come to you. Most of the time, there's nothing more interesting or valuable to them, than your praise and attention. And when your European Doberman is grown up, they will sprint across acres just for you to praise and pet them.

​Most of our "Recall" training is done very casually, everyday. brining the Doberman puppy inside and outside for potty time, etc. Below is listed some dedicated training techniques, for when you want to specifically work on recall.

Our Favorite Training Method

Cheddar Cheese

This method can be used to have them learn their name as well! Make small cubes of cheddar cheese, and go out into the yard with them. With them still by you, use your recall command, and immediately give them a piece of the cheese. Repeat 4-5 times. Then go and do something else; You want them to walk around and not pay you much attention, have them focus on other things. When they're preoccupied with something else, do your recall command, if they don't come to investigate right away, repeat and hold out the cheese so they see you have a reward. Let them become preoccupied again, and repeat. Eventually replace the cheddar cheese with praise as they get older. You now have a dog that loves to recall!

Real Life Results of Recall Training