Border Terrier recall training: clicker plus treats

Moving from clicker-only to a treat-and-clicker combination is a smart upgrade — you're essentially giving your Border Terrier a much stronger reason to choose you over whatever has caught their nose. The clicker stays as the marker, but now you're backing it with a real pay-off. To point you toward the right treat, it helps to know: how strong is your dog's food motivation generally, does he or she have any allergies or sensitivities, and what kind of environment are you doing most of your recall practice in — garden, open fields, somewhere with serious distractions?

That's the classic Border Terrier problem — the scenting instinct is genuinely powerful and a click with no food reward just can't compete with a fresh trail once she's locked on. For a dog with moderate food motivation in a high-distraction environment, you need something with a really strong smell that she can process fast and get back to work. What's she been getting as rewards up to now, and have you tried any food treats in training before, even casually?

Kibble outside is almost always a dead end with a scent-driven terrier — the smell just isn't strong enough to cut through. What you want is freeze-dried liver. My recommendation is Forthglade Freeze-Dried Liver Treats. They're single-ingredient, intensely smelly in the best possible way, and the texture means you can break them into tiny pieces so you're not overfeeding during a session. The smell carries well in open air, which matters a lot when you're competing with whatever the park has going on. Pair one small piece with your clicker the moment she reaches you and you'll notice a real difference within a few sessions — the treat gives the click genuine weight outdoors. Start on a long line so she's practising the full run-back to you safely, and build up before you try off-lead in the park.

Click on arrival, not the turn — at least for now. You want the marker to mean 'you completed the recall,' not 'you started thinking about it.' Once her recall is solid and fast, you can experiment with clicking the turn as a way to reinforce the initial response, but building the full behaviour first gives you a cleaner foundation. Keep your sessions short — five to ten reps maximum — and always end on a success. The liver treats make it easy to stay generous with the reward without filling her up.

Good plan. The long line is genuinely important — it means she gets real practice at distance without the risk of her deciding the scent trail wins. Give it two or three weeks of consistent short sessions and you should see her starting to self-interrupt when she hears the recall cue. Border Terriers do get there; they just need the reward to be worth it.