Tips to Get a Dog to Come Inside When it Doesn’t Want to

For this Omaha dog training session we helped 1 year-old German Shepherd Evy (Pictured here on the right with her roomies Black Lab Sully and GSD Hogan) who doesn’t always come inside when called.

Evy was rescued from a bad situation, but at a time that the guardians were not planning on getting another dog. While the focus of this post is getting a dog to come inside when it doesn’t want to, we spent a considerable amount of the session working on building in rules and structure to help her stop challenging the other dogs over items.

The more the guardians establish a healthy leader follower dynamic by enforcing rules, petting with a purpose and rewarding wanted behaviors through passive training, the more Evy will identify as a follower. It will be more difficult for one of the guardians than the other. But Im confident she now understands that by catering to every request, she was contributing to Evy’s defiant behavior. Its going to be a “who blinks first” situation, but im confident the guardian will endure and help Evy adopt the follower’s mindset that should help with many of her dog behavior problems.

After sharing a few hours worth dog dog behavior tips, we heard outside so I could show the guardians how to train a dog to come inside when it doesn’t want to. You can learn how to teach a dog to come in from outside by watching the free dog training video below.

When Evy refuses to come inside, and the guardian keeps asking without success, she was unintentionally training the dog to not listen to her. But by waiting and rewarding for what she wants, she can stop the dog’s refusal to come when called.

The great thing about this kind of positive dog training is the dog gets to determine things on its own. I didn’t call Evy over, but simply rewarded her when she did so. By being passive this way, the dog learns on its own and since they like the reward, it doesn’t take long to form a new habit. Bets of all, you don’t have to train German Shepherds for a living to do this.

To help the guardians remember all the other dog behavior tips we shared in this at home dog training session, we did a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.