Sit Ubu sit. Good dog! Woof!

Yeah, I have a dog.  A huge, golden dog whose weight hovers somewhere around 1000 lbs.

How do I know that I have a dog?  I learned today that he has a pretty decent recall command.

As a backstory, during clicker sessions I will back him up and move him forward to me, then whoa.  I always ask for him to come to me the same way, by saying, "Peanut, come!"  If his attention wavers or I prep something then want him to come to me, I say, "Peanut, come!"

While tacking him up, I have him walk out as I adjust the girth.  I do it with him at liberty, having him follow me by saying, "Peanut, come!"

Today was gorgeous (almost 70!), so I went out after work to see the Nutterbear.  It was dinner time when I got there, so I just hung out at the fence until he decided to leave his hay and see me.  I then walked along the fence - with him shadowing me and sometimes Spanish Walking - until we reached the gate.  On the way, he got distracted by another pile of hay and I waited for him to come back to me.  I would have been happy to watch him eat.

Anywho, once we got out, I let him just graze the new grass (he was missing dinner hay) while I swept away piles of shedding hair with my hand.  He was at liberty as I was doing it, and every now and then he'd get excited about a distant bit of grass and take off a little faster than I wanted to follow.

I would say, "Peanut, come!"  And he would pick his head up, spin around, and come walking back to me with purpose.  I tried this a few times, and it worked every time.  He was distracted by new spring grass, but my food-motivated beast would come back to me when called for a cookie.  Good boy!  As we practice this, I can see it coming in very handy in otherwise terrible situations.

This worked before once when Dawn was there and Peanut had wandered off, but that was many months ago and this time it worked like an absolute charm.  He knew exactly what I wanted.

He is starting to learn "backup" as a purely verbal cue, too.  Whoot!

His whoa was always his best verbal command, and I have used it to my benefit a couple of times outside of training.  It's actually not "whoa", it's "annnnnd... ho."  Most times he'll stop before I finish the "and."

Another "trick" that is coming along well is having him trot beside me instead of just walking with his head held high and me pulling like anything.  On lead it is getting much better, and today we did it a little at liberty too.  I am giving him "trot!" as a verbal command for this one, as that is my goal.  Vets like seeing a trot in a lameness exam over that wacky gait that they don't know what to do with.