The Weekly High Five 🐾

Hey Reader,
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You unclip the leash at the park. You call your dog's name. You watch them blow right past you like you're not even there.

So you call again, louder. Still nothing. They're already onto the other dog, the smell, the kid with the ball.

And you're left standing there feeling it confirm the thing you've been afraid of. Maybe my dog is stubborn. Maybe I did something wrong.

Here's the deal. Your dog isn't stubborn. The park is the hardest test you will ever hand them, and nobody passes a test they were never taught.

Picture recall as a final exam. The park is exam day. It's the loudest, busiest, most exciting room your dog will ever stand in. And most of us walk straight in there, unclip, and start grading a skill we never actually built for that room.

A dog who comes in your kitchen has learned kitchen recall. That's the whole skill so far. The kitchen and the park are two different rooms, and every rung between them got skipped.

Recall gets built in layers. Boring to hard. One rung at a time.

Let me show you what rung one looks like, with a puppy named Lily.

Lily's family wanted reliable recall, so we started in the most boring place they had. The backyard, a long line clipped on, nothing else going on. Her handler walked back and forth and rewarded Lily every single time she caught up. Low stakes. Nothing competing for her attention.

She came back every time she was called, and she sat. Boring backyard recall, locked in.

Then we added distraction as its own separate rung. I scattered treats in the grass while kids walked past and construction ran nearby, so the noise meant good things happen, not a recall test under pressure. The skill and the distraction got built on different days, not all at once.

Lily's recall holds today. Not because she's a special dog. Because it started boring.

So here's your rung one. Grab a long line. Pick the most boring spot in your house or yard. Call your dog, reward every check-in, five minutes. That's the whole rep.

Essentially, five quiet minutes a day beats one heroic park session you'll never repeat.

And here's a quick gut check. If "come" isn't close to automatic in your hallway with nothing else going on, the park was never going to work. That's not a failure. That's just the next rung, waiting for you.

This email gives you rung one and why the park keeps falling apart. Total Recall, my 30-Day Transformation, is the rest of the ladder. The exact order, how long to hold each rung, when to add distance, when to add distraction, and the emergency word for the day it truly counts. One short rep at a time, until "come" holds up even at the park.

Start the Total Recall 30-Day Transformation here.

You got this.

Happy training,

Pam,
CPDT-KA

Find me on IG: @down4paws

P.S. If your dog bolting is a real safety thing and not a practice gap, a self-paced course isn't the move. That's a 2-Hour Consultation, where we build the plan together for your exact dog and follow up with an action plan in 24 hours. https://down4paws.com/2-hour-consultation/