Coming when called, or “recall” is an important— sometimes life-saving— skill for a dog to have.  Locket’s first trainer told us, “Recall is something you will always work on. The work of coming when called is never done. And, no matter how it might seem, it is always 100% the dog’s choice to come back to you.”

Recall is a lot like yoga practice. No matter how many hours we log on the cushion, no matter how many times we roll out a mat,  and no matter how many conscious breaths we string together over the years, we keep practicing.  Just because I could do something yesterday— be that something a pose, a challenging conversation or a deep meditation— there is no guarantee that I will be able to bend in the same way, be as direct in my next conversation, or find the same state in meditation today. And so on.  

Of course, as we all know, regular practice sustained over time has cumulative results, one of which is the likelihood that we get habituated to the field of practice, rather than to the field of distraction.  Regularly practicing recall with  a dog increases the chances of them coming when called.  Of course, like I wrote two weeks ago, in order to recall my  dog, I have to first get her attention.   Lots of name recognition work, jumping up and down, waving my arms and so on seems to help Locket find me more interesting than dirt. I am rarely (never or at least, not yet) more interesting than a bunny, a deer, etc.  So there is that.

When practicing recall in a reward-based training model, the challenge is to help the dog want to come back to you. After all, coming when called is 100% the dog’s choice, remember? If I get increasingly harsh and angry with Locket as she continues to do her own thing when I call, she has less incentive to come back to me. Why return to such a potentially-punishing  atmosphere when she can keep delighting in the world of intoxicating scents and the potential opportunities that await her in her independence?  By the same token, if I am harsh with myself— endlessly criticizing, judging, not-enoughing, or too-muching myself— I am not going to want to come back to me. And what is yogic practice but the invitation back home to me through various techniques and perspectives?

If every time I recall  Locket, I put her leash on her, give her a bath, clip her toenails, put her in her crate, or in some way stop her fun, what incentive does she have to return to me? Over time, she will learn that coming when called stops her fun and she will make the well-informed choice to revel in her freedom while she has it. In the same way, when my practice is too austere, too strangled by notions of “good/right” and “bad/wrong” or motivated by the fear of what will happen if I don’t do it, I will find myself less interested in practicing because the freedom of doing my own thing will be more enticing that the restrictions I have imposed on myself.

In Locket’s school, the dogs play all day long in small groups. The trainers continually recall the dogs, give them a treat or a snuggle for coming when called,  and then turn them back to the group so that the dog  can continue  to play with their friends. They repeat this scenario  throughout the day to help the dogs learn that coming when called means good things. 

On a practical note, this kind of work paid off for me and Locket on a recent walk. On a typically empty side street, three neighborhood dogs  frolicked  in the snow while their owners were sledding with the kids. I made a quick choice to take Locket off her leash, figuring she’d do better meeting a bunch of loose dogs without her leash on and, if needed, I could grab her harness. The dogs  met, sniffed, and started a lovely little game of romp. All the while they were introducing themselves, I  talked in a high and perky voice (Her current trainer told me this  communicates to the dogs that things are fine so I figured it was worth a shot.) After a few minutes,  I saw that  another dog was tied to a tree a little further up the street. I didn’t want Locket to run up to a barking, tied-up dog. I looked at Locket, happily romping with her new pals, and said, “Locket, come!” Locket looked at me, looked at her friends, and trotted back to me for a huge handful of treats and praise.  And well, yes, I did put her leash back on, but I figure the massive amount of treats still made  it worth her while to choose me over those dogs. And I fed her generously as we walked without incident by the barking dog and continued with our morning constitution.

So, ideally, whenever possible, recall means good things, not a stop to the good things.  If my time on my mat, my cushion, with my journal, etc.  is filled with tasty treats and doesn’t continually cost me  more than it gives me, how I see a life of practice begins to shift.  Instead of mindfulness, consciousness-building practices being an imposition in my life  that stop me from being my fun-loving self,  practice becomes its own reward. If most of the time, my practice atmosphere is pleasant, then when life really asks me to pay attention and the time demands a bit of buckling down, I, like Locket on her recent walk, am just a little more likely to walk away from a potentially dangerous situation and choose to come back home.  

The work of coming home to oneself never ends. And no matter how far I may have strayed or how swept up into the world of intoxicating scents and seductive shiny objects I may be at any given time, I can call myself home through a single conscious breath and compassionately reward myself for returning, rather than punishing myself for roaming. 

All right, that’s what I have for today.  Also, I got my hair cut. And, they take a lot of photos at Locket’s school so her posing skills are improving as well as her recall. Okay. More soon.

Keep the faith.