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Teaching Basic Commands

To begin with your main objective is to have a well-behaved dog that is under control in a variety of situations. This can be achieved with just a few basic commands.

'No' — At first it may seem like you say this word more often than the dog’s name! When the dog does something undesirable (jumping on the sofa for example) say the word 'no' gently but firmly, and if necessary take his collar and move him to where you intend him to sleep. Once he is in the area you want him to use for a bed give him lots of praise thereby reinforcing the idea that this is a pleasant place to be. If you calmly repeat this every time the dog gets on the sofa he will quickly learn what is expected. It is also important to fuss him just for going on his own to his bed, and not always wait until you have guided him there.

'Come' — The ultimate goal with this command is that eventually you will be able to have your dog off the lead in safe locations’ and always get him back to you, regardless of the distractions around him. To achieve this he must want to come to you more than anything else, and this will only happen if he always associates his return to you as pleasant. You can begin teaching this command in the house by calling the dog at dinnertime. Say the dog's name followed by the word ‘come’. It may take a little while for him to catch on initially, as many greyhounds won’t actually know their name, so you are introducing two new words. This can be carried on out in the garden, and the dog rewarded with a titbit when he responds. It is important at this stage that you never chastise the dog, even if he has taken quite some time to return, otherwise chances are that next time his return will be even slower. Once you think that he actually understands the 'come' command you can begin to reduce the titbits until they are given only for the fastest returns. Work on building up fast returns with more distractions and in different places (on a flexi lead in the park is good).

You also need to give some thought to the value of the reward on offer. If your dog starts to run across the park to play with another dog and you call him back to you, he is unlikely to respond if he knows all that is on offer is a piece of dry biscuit—playing with a new dog is a far greater reward. However if he knows he may get something really tasty (cheese, liver, hot dog) he is more likely to come back. It can also help if he is already hungry when you go out.

When I was working with Jack on his recall I used to bag up all the food he would be fed in 1 day into lots of small zip lock bags (very messy, but also a very effective way of teaching him that it was worthwhile to come back to me). When we were out I would call him, and if he did not come first time he didn’t get a reward. He also wasn’t fed at home, so the only way he could get his dinner was to ‘earn it’ by doing good recalls. Although this may sound harsh, it only took a day or two for him to get the idea, and it now means he can have almost unlimited freedom and we quickly established the basis for a very good recall. The method you choose depends on how important a good recall is going to be to both you and your dog.

Finally it is necessary to accept that no matter how good your dog is, there will always be some situations where he will totally ignore you. For most of my dogs this has always been squirrels! I could starve them for weeks and have their entire dinner rations on offer, yet I know they will still choose to chase a squirrel every time. Knowing this allows me to make informed decisions about where they can safely be off lead. If there are likely to be squirrels about, then they only come off lead if I am confident the area is safe and secure, that way they can have a good time doing what they do best and I can relax knowing they are unlikely to injure themselves. It also saves me a lot of pointless shouting!

Teaching your dog to have a good recall is very important, and not really something that can be learned solely from reading a few ideas on a web site. Once again it is important to work on this either with a trained specialist in the safe and controlled environment of a dog club, or someone who is knowledgeable and experienced with sight hound breeds.

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