The April Behavior of the Month is a Recall game that we call the Rolling Recall. It’s a fun way to start a play group, to burn off some energy and also get all the dogs ready to pay attention to the play group staff while they’re having fun with their furry friends. To play the game we call all the dogs to come to each staff member and we ask them to come to us three times in a row.
1.For the first round, we call each dog and ask them to sit. We treat the sit and then say “Go play”, so they know they can go back to the group.
2.For the second round, we call each dog and ask them to sit and then do a down. We treat the down and then, “Go play.”
3.For the final round, we call each dog and ask them to either sit or do a down. Then we ask the dog to stay and either do a bungee stay (September, 2013 Behavior of the Month) or a circle stay (October, 2013 Behavior of the Month) and then, “Go play.”
This game works on the basic skill of coming when called and other behaviors – sit, down, and stay – to help make sure those behaviors are nice and solid in a variety of contexts. The game incorporates all the distractions of other dogs romping around or coming to sit by the dog that’s doing the exercise, and each round asks for a more complex set of behaviors – making it an extra tough game!
