Really Reliable Recall Booklet

This book may be small but the contents are mighty. Leslie Nelson is an incredibly clear communicator. By following the instructions in this book and the accompanying video to the letter, i wound up with two dogs with enthusiastically compliant recalls. Not only is the training fun for both trainer and dog, the result can save a life. Because the recall you train becomes so ingrained and automatic that your dog doesn’t even pause to weigh options. Two specific times this “emergency recall” saved me or my dogs from a dangerous situation: 1. I’d stepped out into our driveway with my loose, generally obedient dog, onto our quiet country road to go and feed livestock on the other side. Just as we stepped out a horseback rider on a young, nervous horse appeared from behind some dense shrubbery. My dog, a rescue, was instantly a-quiver and on the brink of rushing over to investigate when I deployed my emergency “word,” my best imitation of the “woot, woot, woot!” sound of a Star Trek Enterprise alarm. Without giving it even a moment’s thought my dog swapped ends and came racing back to me for his surprise treat. I hadn’t any on me but we rushed to the nearest refrigerator for some delectable bit of meat from the previous night’s dinner. 2. Our two large dogs, one the above-mentioned rescue, were casually hanging out with us in a large field in the country where a volunteer group I belong to was removing old rusty fence. Periodically I used my regular recall to treat and release them, while keeping an eye out for distractions. But there was nothing but empty farm fields all around...until a small group of horses appeared on the far side of a distant fenceline. I surmise that my younger rescue must have started off to investigate. My older dog wasn’t about to be left out so quickly joined him. That caused dog #1’s excitement level to accelerate and soon both were off and running. Horses, barbed wire fences and rushing dogs don’t mix. Someone must have alerted me and as I looked up in alarm our well-practiced response kicked in: I started “woot, woot, woot!”-ing, and my two dogs instantly flipped back towards me to race each other for treats. I was well-armed that day with dried beef lung, and they were richly rewarded. Everybody around me was going “wow! How’d you do that?!?” The point is that by following Leslie Nelson’s well-explained logic and practice, both you AND your dog, like firemen to the rescue, will leap to perform your “recall trick” without pausing to think. I know that by the time I had to deploy my “emergency recall” in a real-life situation, both my dogs thought every “emergency recall” was a set-up, and they weren’t about to screw up and miss the opportunity for a real bonanza of a reward. If you want to enjoy walking your dogs off-leash, then you need this book. No matter how naturally obedient your dog is, there is always the odd situation where someone or some animal could get injured—maybe yours—and you’ll be glad you have the “instant recall chip” installed on your pooch. Just because this book is short and sweet doesn’t mean it isn’t dense with just the essential program to get you to that goal. Two thumbs up for the “Really Reliable Recall” by Leslie Nelson.

Good content, but not many pages of content. Was more of a pamphlet than a booklet.