Instant recall. How to get your dog to come.

On the right we see Laura, my daughter, then aged about nine or ten throwing her arms back and calling: 'Daaaaaaaarling!' On the left, out of sight, Darling is racing up the hill as fast as she can keen to obey her mistresses' (have I got the apostrophe in the correct place?) voice. All my dogs have pretty much instant recall and the way I have always trained them is this. I don't feed them for a day. The next day I divide their food into ten little plastic bags and take them into the garden (well, field, to be strictly accurate) and after they have romped off I call them - just once. If they come (and with a bit of prompting, sit neatly in front of me) they receive one tenth of their daily food. If they don't they are down to nine tenths. Repeat, as it were. The first day most dogs end up with about half their daily allowance of food. The second day they tend to stick to one like glue making it hard to put the system into practice. I've never come across a dog (apart from my ex-partner's standard Schnauzer, who has no interest in food) that didn't respond to this method. If only I could train the children as easily. I often have to call: 'Laurrrrrrraaaaaaa!' a dozen times to get her attention...