Everyone knows to train a recall, its the single most important thing your dog can learn. A lot of people blend a recall, and an emergency recall, but for us, a regular recall is "head back this way", no real urgency to it, just come back closer to me.
Our emergency recall (we use "NOW!"), means "drop everything and get back to me this second". Our dogs regular recall is solid, i dont usually have to worry, but it does take her some time to get back to me.
Today we were in the field, on a long line because its not fenced and I dont trust her to know to stop at the sidewalk yet. I clip her long line to my belt loop, usually she doesnt get far enough away for it to be a problem. Today, she did. She saw something and took off towards it, all 75lbs of German Shepherd speed and stregnth, snapped the leash and broke the belt loop. She was totally detached from me and racing across a field after something.
I used our emergency recall, she stopped on a dime, whipped around and came racing right back (rewarded with so many treats of course). Would her regular recall have worked there? Possibly. I didnt want to rely on her trotting back in her own time when I no longer had control over her or the situation though, and wanted her back in arms leash ASAP.
Ive never been so happy to have a reliable way to get my dog back to me so fast. Train an emergency recall, its worth it.
submitted by /u/Its-alittle-bitfunny
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