Question:
Is there any really good ways to teach my dog to come when called so that if she does get out she wont run away? I am trying the whole treat in hand and call her and it works inside but when she is loose she doesnt come at all. Any ideas about this?
Answer:
The only way to make a dog reliable to any command is to condition the dog to the desired response. There are no short-cuts, no magic potents. We use physical constraints such as the leash, the light line, a crate, an enclosed area, etc. to limit the dogs response to the one we want. That's the reason for the light line in your case. If she's free when you call her, she can choose to do any number of things. She can come, run off, pretend she didn't hear you, etc. With the line attached she has no choice but to come. You use the line to 'condition' the dog to respond to the recall command by coming to hand.
So how does it work? let's use an example ( a rather limited one). You put the line on a dog and it runs off. It comes to the end of the line, gets a jolt and finds itself trapped. Not the result it wanted. Running off didn't work, so it tries something else like laying back and pulling on the leash. This is hard on the neck and isn't working either, so it quits pulling and lets a little slack in the line. This is the first thing that's worked for the dog. It sees that if it doesn't pull, the line doesn't pull either. The dog has figured out how to win. He can escape the pressure of the line by stepping toward you. If he tries to go any other direction he increases the pressure. That would be losing, and he's programmed by nature to win if he can. That's how he survives. Escaping this unwanted experience is common to most 'obedience' exercises that we teach. If we push his hind-quarters down and pull up on the leash he learns to escape the pressure by sitting, etc. So we call this the 'escape phase' of training the exercise. Next, he will learn to avoid the pressure before it is applied, by sitting as soon as he feels your hand. He's winning big-time now. He's got it all figured out. The more times he wins, the more certain he becomes that this is the way to win. This is the 'avoidance stage'. If he hears the word 'sit' each time, half a second before the pressure is applied, it will become a cue that tells him the pressure is coming and he will become conditioned to respond to the command the same as to the pressure of your hands. A conditioned response becomes almost instinctive with the dog nearly incapable of behaving differently.
Where we go wrong is we frequently don't do the conditioning properly, or we quit before the the job is done. For example, if we want the conditioning to work in different areas, we must work him in different areas. If we want the response to be reliable under distraction, we need to work with him under distractions, etc. Quit before the conditioning is complete and the conditioning begins to fade and his response becomes less reliable. The gradual shortening of the light line is a measure to prevent quitting before the conditioning has been properly established. The more bad days he has, the longer it takes to get rid of the line and the more conditioning he receives before he is expected to respond without any constraints.
The first order of conditioning a particular response to a control command is that there must always be just one way for him to win. If he occasionally wins by another route, say, running off, you are fighting a losing battle. Intermittent reinforcement is actually stronger than regular reinforcement. This means you must always be in a position to limit his options to the one you want, until you have effectively conditioned that response (the light line puts you in this position ). Until you get to that stage, never use the actual control command unless you are sure you are in a position to win if he tries to take a new and undesirable tack.
And now, for a little humor that might help to illustrate.
A man goes to a New York pyschiatrist's office for help. During the interview, the pyschiatrist notices that he's sitting on his hands. He asks him, "Why are you sitting on your hands?" The guy replies, "It keeps the lions away!" The pyschiatrist says, "There are no lions in New York City." The guy says, "See! It works!"
That's how your dog thinks.