The Recall Guide: Transform Your Dog’s Recall, and Have Fun Doing It!
Whether you’re starting from scratch or tackling tricky distractions, this recall guide gives you a clear, step-by-step path to success.
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
How to Use The Guide
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.
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.
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.
