How to Your Dog Prevent Escaping and Running Away

The wayward dog looks for every opportunity to escape. Preventing escape means locking doors and gates and checking and re-checking no door is left open. This is critical if there are children or others in the household who could be irresponsible and cause an escape. If so, checking and teaching household members to close and latch doors becomes the key to preventing escaping and running away.

Wayward dogs also dig under fences and are good at finding holes in fences and doors. Keep dogs supervised, exercised and mentally stimulated at all times. There is never a good reason for leaving a dog in a yard alone.

Start using positive reward-based training to teach the right behaviors. Here are three steps to prevent dogs from escaping and running away.

Prevent door bolting by teaching sit and wait

Prevent damage control, meaning fence jumping, dashing out the door and running loose. It can be as simple as proper supervision at all times and teaching the dog to sit and wait at the door. Wait should be coupled with reaching out to open door, opening the door and increasing duration of the wait with attention to you, not racing out the door. Reward the right behavior with a high rate of reinforcement. During the training phases keep a drag line on the dog and when you release the dog, go out with them. This can be a pleasant situation if a drag or long line is used until the dog has proven reliability.

Supervise dog when outdoors and provide training and activities

A solid, inescapable fence at a height and depth the dog cannot break through is the best solution. I am not for the use of electrical devices or electrical fences as the fall out comes in the form of other behavior problems, such as fearfulness, anxiety, hyperactivity or worse complete shut down. Keep your dog pain free and happy, yet contained by supervising activity and providing the proper fencing. This can be completed as expensive or inexpensively as you want. While doing this, training the dog to stay within boundaries and off leash reliability can be systematic and rewarding.

Teach a reliable recall in and out of the yard

Start by teaching recall games. Call the dog and deliver a treat between two people. Do a two-treat toss if you are alone. Toss a treat out and away from dog so they have to go out to get it. Then step or run backwards and call the dog. Give a better treat when they arrive in front of you. Just repeat these games, as well as play hide and seek and disperse a treat each time the dog finds you. Make coming to you fun and you will create reliability.

Train static and moving recalls. Teach recalls from a static sit, down or stand, but also when they are moving, running, walking or turned away from you. Again, always make coming to you highly rewarding. Once this is reliable, then start teaching an emergency recall.

The emergency recall differs from a regular recall using a different word, or a whistle and racing away in the opposite direction. As you do so it, use ya predetermined cue word OR a whistle. If using a whistle, the tone must be exactly the same each time to be effective. Pick one tone and stick to it. When your dog gets to you have a treat they do not normally get, and treat for a full 30-seconds.This is equal to seven to eight treats for little dogs and 12 to 15 treats for medium to large dogs. This reinforces the behavior of racing to you quickly, makes you fun to come to and helps in case real life occurs and the dog has escaped.

Take the time to train a few simple skills and escaping and running away will become past history.