Gimme Your Collar: Foundations for a Reliable Recall

Have you ever gone to take a dog by the collar only to have them duck away for a fun game of keep away? Teaching puppies to gladly have someone reach for and hold them by the collar is an important life skill for emergency situations. It’s even more handy for a dog to actively put their neck and collar in your hand when asked, especially for our pups’ future partners who are blind or visually impaired.

What You’ll Need

• Food rewards (don’t forget to measure out the amount you use and deduct it from their next meal!)
• A puppy wearing their flat collar loose enough for you to slip a couple fingers underneath

Collar games are super easy to teach! To start, all you will do is reach down and gently grab a hold of the puppy’s collar. Use a happy voice and food rewards to celebrate and tell the pup what a good job they’re doing! Then let the puppy go and do it again!

The puppy may try to sniff your hand in hopes of a kibble; you can let them sniff and see there is no food in that hand before reaching for the collar. This should go away as the puppy gets used to you reaching for the collar. Reach out for support if the pup has trouble getting used to you reaching for their collar or tries to play keep away!

Prerequisite:

• The pup is comfortable and remains engaged when you reach for their collar
• The pup makes eye contact and approaches when you say their name

Once the puppy is comfortable with you reaching in to take ahold of the collar, we can teach the puppy to offer their collar when you say their name and put out your open hand. This is the first step of teaching guide dog puppies to come when called for a handler who is blind or low vision.

To teach this, move away just a little bit, call the puppy’s name and hold out your hand at the puppy’s chest level (think like a “low-five”, not a “high-five”). As the puppy catches up to you, reward them (food and happy voice party!) when their neck accidentally touches your hand on approach. Give a couple more pieces of food to reward them for staying close before you move away to repeat. After several tries, the puppy should begin to “target” your hand with their body, allowing you to easily touch their collar. At this point, put the two games together and grab hold of the collar when the puppy approaches, and keep holding as you celebrate with lots of cheering and multiple pieces of food!

Once the puppy figures out the game, play in different environments to help them generalize the skill, anywhere you might need it!