Trainer reveals the secret to improving your dog's recall — and it all comes down to this one simple exercise

Recall training is something that’s really important to do with your puppy, but are you getting it exactly right?

While recall training isn’t difficult, and often involves only a few things – including some of the best dog treats – there’s one particular exercise that dog parents often miss out of their training routine. But there’s no need to worry, because award-winning trainer Lisa Burton of Listen Dog Training has explained all we need to know in a recent Instagram post.

“Everybody thinks that beginning recall training with their puppy is calling them to ‘come’ and rewarding them when they do,” begins Burton, “But there’s three core concepts the puppy needs to learn first, without any movement or distance involved.”

• The human is a vending machine
• The recall cue is a notification that the vending machine has paid out
• The vending machine only pays out when in very close proximity

Burton explains that if we start training recall in dogs with distance between you and your puppy, you aren’t setting yourself up for a 100% success rate. If the puppy hears the recall cue and either decides not to respond or doesn’t know how to respond, you’re already reducing the chances of success.

So, it’s important that our pups understand what to do for a perfect recall right from the off – and that’s to come all the way in. What we don’t want is for our dogs to come towards us but think they’ve completed their task when they’re still about a foot away from us. In an emergency where you need them right next to you, this won’t be any good.

So, Burton recommends trying what she calls the vending machine exercise.

• Start when your puppy is already engaged with you.
• Choose a brand new recall cue – decide on a clean one that you can use only for recall.
• Give the cue and then immediately drop a high-value treat on the floor between your feet.

Repeat this five or six times per session, and repeat sessions two or three times a day for a few days.

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“If you begin with this exercise, you are forming the powerful association that you need your puppy to have, to give you an amazing response every time as you progress your recall training,” says Burton.

You want your dog to know that when they hear a certain cue, the vending machine will pay out! And once you’ve got this nailed down, you can add in more complex distractions and further distance.

For more recall tips, here are three reasons why your dog’s recall isn’t reliable (and what you can do about it) .