Imagine calling your dog and watching them light up as they race back to you — tail wagging, eyes bright, thrilled to come when you call. That’s what a reliable, happy recall feels like — and this guide will help you get there.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or tackling tricky distractions, this recall guide gives you a clear, step-by-step path to success — and one that you can tailor to your goals and your situation. Inside, you’ll find:

• Fun, proven activities that build attention, enthusiasm, and reliability.

• Real-life training setups that teach your dog what to do around a distraction – even ones they want to chase.

• A flexible structure you can skim, jump around in, or revisit whenever you need inspiration.

• Activity-based enrichment that strengthens your bond while improving your training results.

You’ll learn how to systematically work through distractions, teach reinforcement systems you’ll use to reinforce your dog’s recall, and create conditions where joy and responsiveness show up for your dog.

Most importantly? These games make training fun again — for both of you.

If you ever need ideas or personalized support, you can reach out anytime through the subscriber chat.

The Recall Guide Table of Contents

• The Recall Primer Part One and Part Two

• The Recall Activity Guide

How to Use The Guide

1. First, if you haven’t already, I recommend reading the companion Recall Primer Part One and Part Two before you get started training. The Recall Primer gives you the conceptual background on what recall is and why a dog might come vs not.

2. Then when you’re ready to dive into the Recall Activity Guide, I think it’s helpful to first skim the whole guide, so you know what’s in it. This guide is not a straight progression. While there are certain prerequisites (e.g. strong response to marker and basic foundation games), you have the option to work through distractions in a variety of ways, use toys or not, add moments of training to your walks, etc. This is meant to work for YOU.

3. We want this to be a living document. I am sure I will add things over time (and you can ask me to!), and if you’ve got any recall training videos to add that might benefit the community, we’d be thrilled if you emailed us at hello@tailsofconnection.com .

The Recall Activity Guide Sections

The Recall Activity Guide is broken up into topical sections. Each section will have links to very short videos and brief descriptions. You’ll see this same list of sections (without the descriptions) at the bottom of every section page in the guide to make it easy for you to jump around.

• Background – High-level info about recalls.

• Gather some data before you get started – Know your baseline before you train.

• Food markers – Teach your markers (plus a note about “location specific markers”).

• Foundations: Build Attention & Recall Behaviors without Your Recall Cue – These are foundation games for attention, orientation, and moving towards you (you’ll master them in low distraction conditions first).

• Add Your Recall Cue – If you’ve got the behavior and emotionality you want, you can start training with your recall cue.

• Add Distractions to Foundation Games + Working with Real World Distractions – Systematically add distractions to your foundation games. We’ll also show how to apply same framework to work through a tough distraction like a dead animal bone.

• Building Attention and Engagement on Walks – How to sneak training into your walks!

• Using Your Recall Cue in Real Life – What to consider when you think you’re ready to start using your recall out in the wild.

• More on Reinforcers & Reinforcement – What to think about when you’re considering your reinforcers, what’s in my treat bag, what a treat cues, etc.

• Food as a Controlled Distraction and a Reinforcer – Food can be a great distraction and reinforcer. This section also teaches you how to teach your dog the “take it” marker/cue and behavior. (Food is a GREAT starting point to work on recall-related behaviors you want to show up in other contexts because it’s interesting to most dogs but you can easily control it.)

• Toys – I am a HUGE fan of using toys to build recall since toys already evoke so many fast and enthusiastic behaviors. This section has some toy-centered recall games for you. Toys are also another great distraction that you can control to have your dog practice recalling off of things that they really want to chase or grab (you can’t control wildlife, but you can control a toy).

• Turning Distractions Into Cues to Run to You – Sometimes the best case scenario is that you don’t even have to use your recall cue because your dog sees something and automatically runs to you. This section talks about how to teach this.

• Leash Handling Skills – Because sometimes you use long lines when building recall :).

• Other: Some other things I thought might be useful but didn’t fall under one of the previous sections.

Up Next: Dive into the activities in The Activity Guide!

Recall is one of my absolute favorite things to train. A solid recall is joyous and enthusiastic, which means you get to spend your time trying to create conditions where those types of behaviors and emotions show up for your dog. If that’s not fun, I don’t know what is!

This Activity Guide portion of our Recall Guide is designed to give you everything you need to build a strong recall and to be something you can return to if you need to troubleshoot. I designed it to be a skimmable reference with links on purpose, so you can easily get to where you want to be.

How to Use The Activity Guide

At the top of each activity section, you’ll find a short note orienting you to what came before and how this section fits into the bigger picture.

Then we dive right into the activities. Most are hyperlinked to short YouTube videos or Instagram posts. Next to each activity name, you’ll see a quick description explaining what it is and why it’s useful. The detailed “how-to” information lives in the caption (for Instagram) or video description (for YouTube).
(Note: Some YouTube videos don’t have full descriptions yet—if there’s one you’d like me to prioritize, just drop a note in the subscriber chat!)

This guide is designed to be skimmable, which is why I’ve kept the activity descriptions short (or at least tried to 😅).

At the end of each section, you’ll find links to the next section, this main landing page (which lists all sections), and a mini table of contents so you can easily jump around.

While there’s an intentional flow to the guide, you don’t have to move through it linearly. Once you’ve mastered your markers and foundations, feel free to mix things up—maybe you’re practicing on your walk while also working on using food or toys as controlled distractions. Float around and have fun with it!

As a reminder, this is meant to be a living document. I will likely update it over time (or if you request things). You can also contribute — email us at hello@tailsofconnection.com (we’d be thrilled to include your videos!).

You can comment on any activity section post or send a chat in the subscriber chat if you want help, ideas, or simply to celebrate a little victory!

Pssst…if you haven’t read The Recall Primer Part One and Part Two, that’s a good place to start before diving into activities.

Recall Activity Guide Sections

The Recall Activity Guide is broken out into sections (you’ll find these section links at the bottom of each Activity Guide page, so you can easily jump around). Here’s what you’ll find in this Activity Guide:

• Background – High-level info about recalls.

• Gather some data before you get started – Know your baseline before you train.

• Food markers – Teach your markers (plus a note about “location specific markers”).

• Foundations: Build Attention & Recall Behaviors without Your Recall Cue – These are foundation games for attention, orientation, and moving towards you (you’ll master them in low distraction conditions first).

• Add Your Recall Cue – If you’ve got the behavior and emotionality you want, you can start training with your recall cue.

• Add Distractions to Foundation Games + Working with Real World Distractions – Systematically add distractions to your foundation games. We’ll also show how to apply same framework to work through a tough distraction like a dead animal bone.

• Building Attention and Engagement on Walks – How to sneak training into your walks!

• Using Your Recall Cue in Real Life – What to consider when you think you’re ready to start using your recall out in the wild.

• More on Reinforcers & Reinforcement – What to think about when you’re considering your reinforcers, what’s in my treat bag, what a treat cues, etc.

• Food as a Controlled Distraction and a Reinforcer – Food can be a great distraction and reinforcer. This section also teaches you how to teach your dog the “take it” marker/cue and behavior. (Food is a GREAT starting point to work on recall-related behaviors you want to show up in other contexts because it’s interesting to most dogs but you can easily control it.)

• Toys – I am a HUGE fan of using toys to build recall since toys already evoke so many fast and enthusiastic behaviors. This section has some toy-centered recall games for you. Toys are also another great distraction that you can control to have your dog practice recalling off of things that they really want to chase or grab (you can’t control wildlife, but you can control a toy).

• Turning Distractions Into Cues to Run to You – Sometimes the best case scenario is that you don’t even have to use your recall cue because your dog sees something and automatically runs to you. This section talks about how to teach this.

• Leash Handling Skills – Because sometimes you use long lines when building recall :).

• Other: Some other things I thought might be useful but didn’t fall under one of the previous sections.

Up next: We will cover more background about recall before you dive into activities.

In the previous section, we covered adding your recall cue to your training — whether via stimulus-stimulus pairing or by adding it where the recall behaviors are already showing up (in the foundation games!).

In this section, we are going to make this harder — but they shouldn’t actually feel harder! We’re going to cover how to add controlled distractions and use those same frameworks to work through distractions you encounter in real life.

Add Distractions to Foundation Games + Working with Real World Distractions

The patterns you’ve been working on make it super likely for your dog to offer the desired behavior. You can use that to introduce distractions in a controlled way.

What are your dog’s distractions?

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In the previous section, we covered adding distractions to the foundation games and working through the ones you encounter in real life. It’s so easy to expect dogs to recall in a million contexts before they have the learning history they need to do that. Practicing recall in a big variety of conditions can actually be a fun (“what kind of weirdness can I create today?!”) and lead to a really solid recall in the long run!

In this section, we are going to cover building attention and engagement on walks. While training session are helpful, there’s still so much you can do on the everyday walks you take anyway!

Building Attention and Engagement on Walks

Walks can be a great time to strengthen offered attention and have some fun together – both things that tend to serve your dog’s recall. Plus, you’re likely going on walks anyway, so adding a little training to your walk doesn’t force you to set aside extra time. Here are some things you can do on your existing walks (if you and your dog are comfortable):

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In the previous section, we went through some foundation games to help you build the behaviors that make up your dog’s recall (and will later become great frameworks for introducing distractions).

In this section, we are going to give you a few options for how to add add your recall cue to your training.

Add Your Recall Cue

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In the previous section, we talked about markers (specifically for food). As we you progress through this guide, you will rely on your dog’s strong, consistent response to markers.

In this section, we’re covering some foundation games for building aspects of the recall behavior. And the added bonus? You will get to continue to strengthen your marker every time you play a game!

We have a future section devoted to adding tougher distractions to this games, so the goal for this section is really about mastering these games (and building a big R+ history) in a variety of lower-distraction settings.

Foundations: Build Attention & Recall Behaviors without Your Recall Cue

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You’re probably just joining us from the article about gathering some data before you get started. It’s so helpful to have an idea of how strong your marker cue is, where your dog’s recall behaviors tends to show up and where it doesn’t, how often they come, how quickly they come, and what types of reinforcers they naturally seek out.

In this section, we are going to cover markers (related to food as a reinforcer) because having a strong marker cue is so helpful (I am tempted to say critical, but I can imagine dogs and scenarios where that word doesn’t fit) in building recall — especially when it comes to distractions.

The key for this section is to walk away with your dog moving to you and taking food out of your hand when you say “yes.” There’s a lot of extra information here that you can dive into if it interests you or skip it if it overwhelms you.

Food markers

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If you are joining us from our main Recall Activity Guide page, hopefully you feel like you’ve got your basic bearings down with this guide.

In this section, we’re excited to delve into more background on recall that will set you up for success as you progress through the activities in this guide. This section do…

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In the previous section, we covered Building Attention and Engagement on Walks. While there is a lot of recall progress to be made in training session, there’s still plenty of progress you can make by adding little moments into your existing walks.

Now we are going to cover using your recall cue in real life and how to avoid wrecking all the work you’ve put in - lol.

So you’re ready to use your recall “out in the wild” when you actually need your dog to come to you. One of the most important things about building a strong recall is your ability to read your dog’s conditions and make decisions about when to use your recall cue (and when not to). If I am not pretty darn sure that a dog will come when I call, I use more informal recall cues (an excited “this way,” “let’s keep moving” or kissy noise/clapping etc.). You want your dog to rehearse coming to you when you call them (not walking the other direction), so you have to be thoughtful. Here are some things to think about as you decide how to use your recall cue outside of training sessions:

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In the previous section, we provided some high level background on recall. We talked about how recall is really multiple behaviors sequenced together, and while you can make progress very quickly, it’s important to have realistic expectations about the time it takes to build truly solid recall in a large variety of conditions.

Now we’re going to delve into the importance of collecting a little data before you get started (and how to do it), so you can know your baseline before you train.

Gather some data before you get started

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In the previous section, we talked about using your recall cue in real life and what to think about to set your dog up for success.

Now we are going to cover a bit more on reinforcers and reinforcement.

More on Reinforcers & Reinforcement

When you are practicing recall out in the world, you want your reinforcement to be on point if you want that recall behavior to keep showing up. Here are some things to think about when you reinforce your dog’s recall behaviors:

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In the previous section, we talked in a bit more detail about reinforcers and reinforcement. Among other things, covered how often you should be reinforcing and how to get the most out of your reinforcers.

In this section, which happens to be a favorite of mine, we are going to talk about some fun ways to teach dogs to do the opposite of what they may currently want to do around a distraction — so instead of moving towards the distraction, they come to you!

Food as a Controlled Distraction and a Reinforcer

Your dog is going to encounter a million things that they are going to want to move towards in their life. Part of the challenge with recall is finding difficult distractions that we can control (so we can make sure our dogs have the skills to succeed). One of my favorite distractions to work with is food. It can double as the distraction and the reinforcer. We can teach them that it actually serves them to move away from it as an entry point to teaching them to move away from (and towards you!) other distractions.

The activities below will allow you to teach your dog a new reinforcement system around food (“take it” — or whatever you choose to call it), stimulus control around food, and to orient/move towards you when something awesome is out there in order to get access to the something awesome “out there.” So here are some activities that I find super useful in building a dog’s ability to move away from something they want when you ask them to (a lot of this is really teaching stimulus control). These are written as a progression, so for example, while there are a variety of options for teaching “take it,” I want to see a dog who can perform that skill before I ask them to walk with me away from the bowl.

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In the previous section, we talked about using food as a controlled distraction and reinforcer. The world is full of things our dogs want to move towards. Using food, we can teach dogs that it’s actually in their interest to come to us when there is stuff out there that they want to move towards.

In this section, we are diving into the fun world of toys! They can be incredibly helping in your recall journey.

Toys

Toys often set the stage for fast, enthusiastic behaviors, which is what we want in recall. This can make them great to train with since those behaviors can transfer to your recall cue. Also, some dogs just like toys better than food. So if you’re interested in using toys in your training, this section is for you! It can be used in conjunction with the other activities, or if food isn’t your dog’s thing, you can focus more on toys.

Before you start, practice your reinforcement systems with toys. For example, if you plan to toss a toy for them to catch, make sure your dog knows how to catch (or try to catch) a tossed toy. If you plan to offer a tug, teach your dog how to access an offered tug. It’s also generally helpful if they will bring toys back to you :). In the future, I’d love to add a companion guide on building toy skills.

Here are some foundation recall games you can play using toys as reinforcers (and sometimes as distractions):

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In the previous section, we talked about using toys to build recall. Toys evoke a lot of fast, enthusiastic behaviors, which is what we want to show up for our recall! Plus, they are something dogs like to chase that we can actually control, so they are a great way to build to ability to either turn to you instead of chasing and/or to recall out of chase.

In this section, we are going to cover how you can turn distractions into cues to run to you (so you don’t even have to call your dog!).

Turning Distractions Into Cues to Run to You

This is a progressive list of things you can work on to turn distractions into cues to automatically run to you.

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In the prior section, we talked about leash handling. You can do so much recall work using a long line, so it’s helpful to have some basic skills to keep you and your dog safe.

In this section, we’re bringing you all of the other good stuff that didn’t fit neatly into the previous sections. This guide is meant to be a living document, so we are happy to build out other sections if requested! For now, they will live here :).

Other

I found some other videos that didn’t neatly fit into another section but were still helpful. Watch and read at your leisure :).

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You’re probably just joining us from the article about turning distractions into cues to run to you (PS: this page has all of the links to activities you can do with your dog to help build their recall).

Now we are going to cover some leash handling skills in case you decide to use a long line.

Leash Handling Skills

Sometimes it’s helpful to use long lines while you train recall. Your safety and comfort matters, so only do this if you feel comfortable.

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But before we begin with Part Two of the Primer, here’s a reminder of how the TOC Recall Guide is broken out and how to use it: :

1. Recall Primer (Part One and Two): Part One of the primer covers the idea of “perfect recalls” and what recall really is. In Part Two of the primer (this article), we go over why your dog might come (or not) when you call them. I recommend reading the primer before moving onto the Activity Guide.

2. Recall Activity Guide: Next, head over to the Recall Activity Guide (coming soon!), where you will find so many (SO MANY) activities to start building or progressing your dog’s recall. Plus, these activities are just plain fun. This is meant to be easily navigable and something that you can come back to time and time again.

Why does your dog come when you call them?

Have you ever heard somebody tell you that you have to be the most interesting thing in your dog’s world? I have (good) news for you: you do not. I want dogs to live in enriched environments with tons of things that interest them. I can trust that my dog and I have a good relationship without needing to be the single most interesting thing in their world at all times. Plus, while your dog loving you is deeply meaningful, it’s an insufficient explanation for behavior.

The answer to why your dog comes when you call them lies in their learning history (reinforcement history) and current conditions. Put (perhaps too) simply: the strongest recalls are the ones that have the biggest, best, and most predictable reinforcement histories. If you want your dog to come when called, coming when called better reliably produce AWESOME outcomes for your dog (over and over and over again).

The strength of your cue and your dog’s behavior are both tied to their relation to the consequence that follows. When you say “come,” it signals to your dog that if they perform a specific behavior (“run to you”), then a specific consequence will occur (e.g. you will toss a treat). This if-then “dependency” is called a contingency. Cues (like the word “come”) signal to your dog what contingency is in play.

You want “come” to be a very strong predictor that desired reinforcers are now available contingent on running to you.

While past reinforcement is what drives future behavior, we cannot ignore conditions. To have a solid recall, your dog has to learn to perform the sequence of recall behaviors under a HUGE variety of conditions. And this doesn’t happen by accident. Recalling your dog in your living room is simply not the same as recalling your dog away from a group of dogs.

Watch this video to see just how powerful seemingly small antecedent changes can be. Then think about how vastly different the conditions can be when you recall your dog. (And in case your brain gets hung up on the fact that I gave treats for “mistakes,” here’s why I did that in the video.)

Remember the good news? You don’t have to convince your dog that other dogs are boring in order to recall them around dogs. You just need to get the recall behavior to show up in those conditions, and this is something we can do systematically – we can transfer the behavior to more and more conditions. (Note: your dog having a big positive reinforcement (R+) history with you, meaning lots of good things happen with you, certainly matters!)

Here are some factors that likely contribute to your dog responding consistently by running to you when you call them:

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So I decided to write something to explain what recall really is, why your dog might come, and why they might not (we’re calling this the Recall Guide Primer). And then for extra fun, I wrote a massive Recall Activity Guide with loads of activities you can do to strengthen your dog’s recall – ranging from building reinforcement systems to using toys to teach dogs to recall out of chase to using some leftover dinner as a distraction. I laid the activity guide out in a skimmable way, so you can come back to it over and over depending on where you are in your recall journey. Together, the Recall Guide Primer and the Recall Activity Guide make up the TOC Recall Guide!

This article is Part One of a two-part Recall Primer to get you ready for our full Recall Activity Guide.

Before I dive in, I want to share why I spent months writing this guide for you in the first place. Recall is one of my absolute favorite things to work on with dogs. Part of it is certainly because it is a useful behavior that can open up a world of possibilities for you and your dog. More than anything though, it’s the process of building recall together with a dog that I love. The best recalls are full of joy and enthusiasm, and it’s just plain fun to work with behaviors with that kind of emotionality. The training also invites the opportunity to get a little creative to figure out how to transfer recall behaviors into tougher conditions – like around wildlife. Plus, I will never tire of watching a dog I love sprint towards me at full speed with a giant smile on their face.

There isn’t a secret to getting a solid recall. It’s just about applying the science of behavior strategically – and sometimes creatively. I want this information to be readily available, and I want you to have a resource that you can come back to throughout your dog’s life and go straight to whatever you need.

We will be sharing The TOC Recall guide as a series here in Substack and are so excited to get this into your hands!

With that said, here’s how to use the TOC Recall Guide:

1. Recall Primer (Part One and Two): I recommend reading through the primer first before diving into the Recall Activity Guide. This article is Part One of the primer, which covers the idea of “perfect recalls” and what recall really is. In Part Two of the primer (coming soon), we go over why your dog might come (or not) when you call them.

2. Recall Activity Guide: Next, head over to the Recall Activity Guide (coming soon!) , where you will find all of the activities to start building or progressing your dog’s recall. This guide will be a home for all of the various recall content we’ve done over the years, plus new activity links that you can navigate to.

   This is just the first installment in our paid Recall Guide series. If you want to get access to the full primer and the activity guide (both coming soon), become a paid subscriber today!

Do You Really Need a “Perfect” Recall?

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