Somerville families who are willing to brave the cold with their dogs will be treated to one hour of free dog training on Sunday. The Somerville Recreation and Youth Commission and the Somerville Dog Owners Group are offering a free clinic with City Dog Training Sunday afternoon, January 17, from 1:00 to 2:00, at Powder House Park. Leashed and licensed dogs that are up-to-date on their vaccinations and enjoy the company of other dogs are welcome. For cancellation in case of inclement weather, please check the City Dog Training website.

In canine obedience training the ability to call your dog and get an immediate response at all times is known as "recall." In November twenty-five families participated in the city's first recall clinic at Nunziato Field with professional dog trainers, Marjie Alonso, CPDT, CDBC and Liz Shaw. Twenty-five families, many of them with children, learned training techniques that could save their dog's life or protect other residents if their pets do get away from them. Photos below.

City Dog Training, located at 321 Washington Street in Somerville, is a community dog training and education facility welcoming neighborhood dogs and their humans to classes, seminars, play groups and behavior consultations.

For more information please contact City Dog Training: contact - AT - citydogtraining.com; 617-628-8862.

Marjie Alonso, CPDT, CDBC, and three other trainers from City Dog Training had dog owners and their dogs arrange ourselves in a large circle so that everyone had room to work without too much distraction.

We used long leads to train our dogs to come when called from a distance.

To train the Recall, we played the "Get It" game. We tossed a treat to direct our dog away from us, then we called our dog and rewarded him with praise and a treat when he came to us.

Gently hooking a finger through our dog's collar, we rewarded her with praise and a treat for coming when called.

We also learned to train our dogs to stay, starting by stepping back one step then returning to our dog to reward him with praise and a treat.