Our dog was never great at "come here," but now she's gone completely rogue.
Sometimes "come here" in the house works a bit, but is stymied by her fear of the cats (she's a 50lb rough coat collie but our alpha cat is vicious). If the cat is between us, she'll shy away and I have to shoo the cat before she'll consider walking toward me. And then she usually only considers it.
Additionally, I think our family developed bad habits; I think she retrained us to give her treats for coming in at all, not just immediately when called.
Now that it's spring, I have to chase her around the yard any morning it's not raining until I can grab her collar and drag her in. She gets no treats for that, but I wonder if I should be praising her as she passes the threshold and give her treats to reinforce "pass through back door to get a treat." We use tiny training treats, about the size of a pencil eraser.
Caveat: she used to have a weekday dog walker who moved on and now she gets no middle-of-the-day activity. We are going to put her in day care as soon as my husband can drive again (severe hand injury). I think day care will help her burn off her energy perhaps make her more compliant. But I'd like to be able to prove she can "come" when called so I can get her into daycare at all.
QUESTION: How can I retrain my dog to come immediately when called and what did we do wrong so it doesn't happen again?
