WILSON THE SPRINGER

For a young dog that is being fed more than twice a day, divide each of its meals into five equal portions.  For a dog that is being fed twice  a day, divide each meal into 10 equal portions.

For the next week:
Every time you feed your dog, show him you have a portion of his dinner, then get someone in the family to restrain him by gently holding his collar whilst you back away about 8-10 steps.  Now bend down, smile and call your dog in a pleasant tone  If you normally use the command "come" now would be a good time to change that, you could retrain using the word "Here" instead, but do change the command to something else and try to keep it to just one word.( if you use the same word ie come and then tell charlie off he will learn that the word come is not nice ) and  have your portion of food,  in the dogs food bowl, outstretched in front of you as you call, as the dog approaches slowly bring the food nearer to you, to encourage the dog to come in close, gently touch the collar and lavishly praise with your voice, put the bowl on the floor and allow the dog to eat the portion.  Do not command the dog to SIT or anything else....it must just come when you call it, that's all.  Repeat this as many times as you have portions. This is an important stage and you must make sure the dog has no other food offered than the main meals, so watch that cat food!!

After one week, review your dogs progress, if he is coming readily, without hesitation every time, then move to the next stage.  If it is not 100% continue doing the above for a further week,  Most owners see a good improvement in the first week.  This is done inside your house even though you may say"we don't have a problem in our house its only when we go out!"  Never mind...do it in the house, we are totally retraining to make it absolute and make it a great game to the dog!

For the second stage increase the distance you move away from the dog and eventually go out of sight into another room.  Remember to first show your dog you have a portion of its daily diet and have your helper restrain the dog, who by now should be straining to get to you before you leave, the dog that is not the helper :) Make sure your helper releases your dog the moment you call it.
Do this in as many different locations around the house as you can, making sure the dogs path is not obstructed.  The dog should be viewing this as a great game by now and getting quite excited about it.  After a week of this, we are now ready for the next phase which includes the dog sitting on reaching you.

All you should now add to this is the sit command when your dog comes close to you, expecting you to put the food down for it.  Instead, raise the food above the dogs head which will normally bring his head up and his quarters down into the sit position.  You may need to use your free hand to assist him into this position for the first few times, but do so gently. Praise him lavishly and put the food portion down for him within 2 seconds of him sitting, no longer.  If you are consistent in the way you train, the dog will start to anticipate the sit command and will do so automatically on reaching you, without being told to. Once this is happening, go to the next phase.

We are now going to change the rules a little to make sure that the exercise you dog does so well indoors, will be the same outside.
Repeat as above, but once the dog has reached you and sat, sometimes clip his lead on before offering him his portion, this will build up a good association with the lead being clipped on after coming to you.  You can also start to call him without firstly showing him you have the portion on offer.  You can also ask your helper to distract your dog by talking to him or stroking him as you give your command.

Now review again....does your dog understand everything we have been teaching?  Do he do it willingly and instantly?
If yes, then we can tighten the rules up further, but you must be sure he does otherwise it will go wrong!

We can now switch to tit bits, instead of the dogs daily diet.
Make sure they are tasty tit bits and now we are going to be random with our rewards.try cheese, sardines anything different   Still use praise as normal.
Call your dog using your chosen command and sometimes give him the reward without him having to sit for it.  Other times tell him to sit before rewarding and sometimes tell him to sit and attach the lead before rewarding, make it random. If you also change the titbit from time to time or have a good game with a toy when the dog obeys, instead of a titbit and sometimes just lavishly praise you will continue a willingness for the dog to comply to the command for he will never be sure what reward he is going to get or how much he will have to do in order to receive that reward.

Now all that remains is to continue the training in as many different locations as possible, make the first stages from home to outside as easy as possible to begin with and continue using your long line so the dog cannot ignore your command.  Do not use it to haul your dog into you, once you have hold of it, he cannot refuse you and he cannot go anywhere, it is in his benefit to obey and receive the reward, then be set free again! Once it is instant outside, reduce the line daily by cutting off a small amount, but hopefully by now you shouldn't have any problems.  Do try to be fun when out walking with your dog, so he doesn't have to go and do his own thing, take his favourite toy and have games, using your line and reward to command him to come, then set him free again and continue playing.
This to your dog is one of the highlights of his day....make it one of yours also.

(thanks to taking the lead website for help with this issue)