The power of an emergency recall word!
We've had our sweet lurcher for about 6 months. She's about 90% sighthound. Not being at all familiar with the breed, I read everything I could find. I ran across a recommendation by a Redditor to train an emergency recall word using a jackpot of treats and have been practicing about once a week to keep it up.
Today, the wind blew the gate of our fence open, and I didn't realize Fia had gone walkabout for about 15 minutes. I ran up and down our road calling for her - Nothing. I started yelling her emergency word and it must have only been 3 minutes before she came running. (Delighted with herself, of course).
I couldn't believe it. We live in a rural area with SO many interesting things for her to explore - horses, cows, fields, birds. And she came when I called 😭 Granted, she knew she'd get a million treats, but I am just so relieved and proud.
Hopefully, this helps someone else! Recall is so important, and having trained a word that is so rewarding may have saved her today.