Pupdate: About...recall

About…recall

By Humanomics Editor, Fox

You might find that your human is a bit obsessive about ‘recall’. Dog ‘owners’ (ahem) talk about this quite a lot. They worry about it too.

For those of you that don’t know the term, it is not a description of your human’s tendency to forget things (though lots of humans suffer from this, mine certainly do). ‘Recall’ relates to how likely you are like to come back when your human calls your name or shouts ‘come’, ‘here’ or something similar.

Now, it is relatively useful for our humans to have a word to let us know that they are taking a different path, popping in the café or (less excitingly) going home.

But, quite often, humans have a different idea to us dogs about how slick and responsive our ‘recall’ should be.

Picture the scene. You’ve been let off lead in the park. You scamper over to a fine looking tree with strong scents of squirrel and undertones of dog wee. Your nose picks up the story of a chase, of a brave hound scampering after a devious rodent when… your name is called. I defy any creature to be able to stop dead in that moment, turn around like lightning and return to their pack without finishing the story. 

It is strange, really, that humans, who are often so slow to respond to our own calls, expect reactions faster than the speed of sound from their dogs.

Then there is the sensory difference. Humans are all about seeing. If they can’t see you, then you may as well have fallen into a deep hole and popped out in Timbuktu. You could be right behind them, and yet they are calling madly for you as though their lives depend on it. (Because they also seem to think that if they can’t see you, you must have had a character malfunction and decided to do something naughty, mad or both.)

Dogs, as we know, are not focused on eyesight at all. It’s all about what we can hear and smell. For me, as long as I am in hearing distance of my humans, I am happy. And hearing distance is really quite far away, because I have exceptional hearing, and they are exceptionally noisy.

So, while I am 100% sure I can make my way back to the pack safely, my humans are tearing their hair our and bellowing my name until they are hoarse. (Somehow they don’t seem to realise that if they really want me to stay close, they should be as quiet as possible.)

Stay Alpha,

Fox

“If you don’t recall your recall, your humans will surely recall to recall you.” Jack R. Bitehall