The Weekly High Five 🐾

Hey Reader,
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Your dog sits every time you ask. In the kitchen, in the hallway, the second the word leaves your mouth, they're already sitting.

Take that same dog outside. Cue "sit" near another dog, a squirrel, or basically anything worth sniffing, and suddenly you're standing there wondering if they've ever heard that word in their life.

You've done the work. Repetition, treats, consistency at home. The dog IS trained. So when it all falls apart the second you step outside, it's easy to land on one conclusion: they're choosing not to listen.

Here's what's actually going on.

Dogs don't generalize the way we assume they will. A cue trained in your kitchen isn't a rule your dog carries everywhere. It's tied to that exact setup: your calm voice, the familiar smell of the floor, nothing else competing for their attention.

Step outside and none of that holds. Now there's another dog, ten new smells, a squirrel deciding your dog's whole day. All of it competing with a cue your dog has only ever practiced in the easiest room in the house.

Your dog isn't ignoring you. They're confused, because nobody's taught them this specific skill in this specific place yet. That's a different problem than defiance, and it needs a different fix.

I worked through exactly this with a golden retriever puppy named Maisie. At home, she was easy. Outside, the second another dog showed up, she pulled hard and stopped checking in with anyone.

We used what I call the Treat Warm-Up. Before a single dog appeared, her owner started saying Maisie's name every 10 to 20 seconds on the walk, treating every time she turned her head. Essentially, we were building the habit of orienting toward her owner before the distraction hit, instead of trying to win her attention back mid-pull.

Try it on tomorrow's walk. Starting from your driveway, before any dog or squirrel shows up, say your dog's name every 10 to 20 seconds. Treat every single turn of the head.

The first few times, you might get a half-second glance and nothing more. Keep going anyway. You're building a habit their brain can use later, when it actually matters.

Maisie still gets excited when she sees another dog. That part hasn't changed. What changed is that she started coming back to her owner on her own, mid-walk, without being called. She'd pull toward a dog, then turn back to her owner, then let the dog pass. That's the part she actually got taught.

That one habit, her name before the distraction, is step one. What it won't give you is the full sequence: how to move from a quiet driveway to a busy street to real distractions, without your dog checking out the first time it gets hard.

That's the whole 30 days inside Total Recall. Five rules, one short email a day, built for exactly this kind of "good at home, different story outside" problem. Start tomorrow. https://recall.down4paws.com

You got this.

Happy training,

Pam,
CCDT

Find me on IG: @down4paws

P.S. If your outside problem isn't recall (jumping, barking, pulling that falls apart the second you leave the house), hit reply and tell me what's going on. I read every one.