It is me or has the pandemic amplified the frenetic nature of our lives? Seems there’s an added layer of complexity to everything we do—several layers. It’s also made us more acutely aware of the people and pups around us. Spending all that time together during quarantine really brought out all our strengths and weaknesses. Speaking of which, when I look at my pups I see they are basically well trained—save for a few issues that need to be worked on.

Let’s talk a little bit about how important it is for a dog to come when they’re called. How often are we in a situation where we’ve let our dog outside and then see a skunk? Or we park the car and the dog jumps out when our hands are full of groceries? Or worse yet, the leash slips out of our hand or we haven’t tightened a collar enough and the dog is on the loose at a busy intersection?

One of my most important tips here is that when you’re training your dog to come when called, make sure it’s always for something good—like a treat or a belly rub. If you start calling your dog to reprimand them, give them medicine, or something else that might they be unpleasant, you might be teaching them not to come when called.  We as humans would run in the other direction too.

Let them always think that when their name is called out, they are coming back to you for something really really good. Even if it turns out to be a life-threatening situation when you’ve called them, my guess is instinctively you’ll give them a great belly rub, hug and kiss once they are out of harms way.