Yes, I get that, but in this thread we're talking specifically about a dog that won't come back, not a dog that won't stop or won't sit or won't walk to heel or whatever. Hence why I'm labouring the point rather, because it's one of the easiest things to mess up if you get the timing wrong, resulting in a dog that's always going to be difficult to catch.
Scavenging lab, recall goes out the window
- Thread starter wildfowler.250
- Start date
Teach him to sit and not move until you tell him, at any distance.
He can't run away if he is sitting.
He can't run away if he is sitting.
Overlay
Well-Known Member
My two teckles are like qujck silver jet fighters, full of energy when out walking, along a track one peep on the whistle and I turn on my heels and walk the other way within 6 or 7 paces they come by me like bullets hoy you left us behind carrying on 50 yds peep turn around the walk is back on -only do it twice on a walk I've found with mine when your a team they like to stick together and they might go ripping it up but they are focused on me as well, for me it's the way forward let em have a rip up but where I'm walking, they got the gist of it but I still do it
Jon P
Well-Known Member
I have had a similar issue with my almost 3 yr old GWP. Obsessed with eating lambs 
. Must be the milky taste
.
Luckily prior to this I had trained her to come back to the Beeps on the GPS tracking collar as a default if the whistle fails. When she comes back to the beeps irrespective of what we are doing she has to sit , stay , I walk way 10- 20 yds then call her and she has a fuss made of her. Beeps will now stop her in her tracks, I don’t over use the beeps, just if she goes whistle deaf.
(My collar does not give electric shocks.)
. Must be the milky taste. Luckily prior to this I had trained her to come back to the Beeps on the GPS tracking collar as a default if the whistle fails. When she comes back to the beeps irrespective of what we are doing she has to sit , stay , I walk way 10- 20 yds then call her and she has a fuss made of her. Beeps will now stop her in her tracks, I don’t over use the beeps, just if she goes whistle deaf.
(My collar does not give electric shocks.)
Overlay
Well-Known Member
Yep best advice especially for a Springer, my daughter finished off training her spaniel last year, my words to her they can't run with there backside planted on the ground, last season 2- 3 days picking up for Frankie's first season his obedience is instant, I'm proud of what my daughter had achieved and she is bursting with pride with her dog it took nearly three years, still on the training, this season will be a full rack he is ready for it, the bloody thing is never tired typical spannel
Larkin
Member
A serious dog trainer might ask "why is he off lead if his recall is unreliable?". When I was training my first Doberman to do schutzhund, off lead was a privilege that had to be earned after a lot of long-lead work. I used a 20 foot lead and would start with 5 foot of slack, walk to a quiet park or field and stop to a stand still, the dog will eventually start to sniff around bored, make your recall command and reward when he comes to you, walk on and rinse repeat every 30 seconds. When he is reliably recalling with 5 foot of slack, release 10 feet and rinse repeat, then 15, then 20 feet, if at any point the recall command is unsuccessful because the dog is pre-occupied with sniffing don't repeat the command, just walk on and try again in 20 seconds. If the dog continues to ignore, say your command with a gentle tug on the long lead to help break their concentration. Do this every night for a month and the dog will be excellent at recall. The problem is usually always lack of time and effort with focused training, it takes hundreds of hours on some dogs, while it may take 10 hours with another!
Alternative method we use for training guide dogs, we have 4 successful dogs placed with blind owners and recall is always perfect, but this would probably not be suitable for hunting dogs. Every time you feed the dog you place the bowl down and make the dog sit/wait, you blow a high pitched dog whistle 3 times and say "ok" and the dog is allowed to eat...you do this every single meal, and you never stop, even when the dog is 3 years old. I've had 1 year old dogs escape into our local forest and be half a mile away and 3 sharp bursts on the whistle has them sprinting back to me full speed. Always reward the positive behaviour.
I don't recommend chasing a dog which is not doing the desired behaviour or berating a dog either, it will only make it associate negativity with you and the training technique. In my experience, I appreciate others may differ!
All the best
Alternative method we use for training guide dogs, we have 4 successful dogs placed with blind owners and recall is always perfect, but this would probably not be suitable for hunting dogs. Every time you feed the dog you place the bowl down and make the dog sit/wait, you blow a high pitched dog whistle 3 times and say "ok" and the dog is allowed to eat...you do this every single meal, and you never stop, even when the dog is 3 years old. I've had 1 year old dogs escape into our local forest and be half a mile away and 3 sharp bursts on the whistle has them sprinting back to me full speed. Always reward the positive behaviour.
I don't recommend chasing a dog which is not doing the desired behaviour or berating a dog either, it will only make it associate negativity with you and the training technique. In my experience, I appreciate others may differ!
All the best
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
I think you may have that a little bit wrong, the dog is tearing off ignoring both stop, recall and anything else, reading between the lines he’s always been a bit hard headed.
My take on it is that he knows damn well what’s expected, but is willing to ignore the handler if he finds something more exciting and so far has had no effective correction.
Its not that he doesn’t know, he’s giving the handler 2 fat fingers.
Any half way decent dog goes through the phase, but it does need sorting fast before it becomes ingrained.
Personally I’d take him right back to the start, then check cord and then when that’s fully reinforced, E collar.
If stages 1 and 2 have been successful I’d still do phase 3 just in case, you probably wont need to use it, but the insurance it provides is priceless, once he learns that theres a limit to your effective control range he’ll never forget it. He won’t forget that theres no limit either.
Agree with above diagnosis, nothing worse than a dog free hunting for itself, damage is done , need to go back to install basics.
Would stay away from electric collars
Personally would initially concentrate on sitting /stop whistle then recall, always stop a dog then recall. Use of place mats and ideally change dogs access to free hunting
sir-lamp-alot
Well-Known Member
I agree with the catch them and chastise them but i aint built for running at all, not even in the slightest so I had to get cleaver with my lab. So what I did is once i knew he knew and understood what the stop whistle was and not before I hasten to add is I put temptation into the mix by sitting him up to my left and throwing a dummy to my right I would then send him on it and as he runs past me i would hit the stop whistle if he didnt stop it then gave me the chance to catch him and chastise and by that I dont mean hit him with a stick or smack him upside the head just holding him down standing over him with a gruff voice basically making the situation uncomfortable for him then re-set him and go again moving further off line he was running. Within a realativly short time he got the idea if he didnt stop I would take off after him and Ive basically fooled the dog into thinking I can catch him where ever he is plus aswell the dog wants the praise and attention of doing good job so make sure you keep praising anything he does right I also further praise the dog stoping for the whistle by giving him a retrive which also helps
sorry dogs dont work work like that as i read it ( if you have phrased it correctly ?) a dog does understand correction- dont get me wrong! However it associates such " correction" will the thing it was doing at that very point in time or even just about to do . timing need to be good but to punish a dog that just came back? i wonder if there is some phrasing misunderstanding ? that is the last thing anyone should do " folks tend to say ," " he knows what he has done " and they are correct they came back ! That soon enough will result in not coming back
Timing for aversion needs to be on the B of the bang and if you can do that your best being a little early when they start to think it rather than late when they have already done it in a past sense as in returned to you
Might get away with it with an earth dog but you would set back or ruin todays Labrador , spaniel etc
for sure . The level of correction can then be way down the scale
I agree with you. Hence my use of an e collar. My dog sniffs everything and pee’s/scents on a retrieve. I can stop that behaviour 20m away or when he comes back chastise him. He wouldn’t have a clue what behaviour he is being told off for. A small beep or “flick” from the collar is excellent for this. I have been sure to try the collar on myself to understand what it is that happens. It is not for punishment but control. Which at the end of the day we need to be in.
try running directly away from the dog as it turns to come back, reduce the number of retrieves given and leave the dog on drop and walk out and pick some yourself . Collars are hellish easy to use as a crutch and can cause problems as fast as they fix them with mis timing or over use .
if your dog ever drops a retrieve to investigate a smell etc , its getting bored !
paulbshooting
Well-Known Member
Same issue with my 2 Yr old lab dog, teenager in progress was the summary of our dog trainer. We have just added a high value reward - rabbit fur dummy - to the recall. He gets this when he recalls then lots of fuss and swaps the dummy for a dog treat after he has a quick play with dummy. Slowly this routine is becoming the norm and now doesn't always get the dummy but anticipates it so recalling well- at the moment! Any other instruction is also delivered on or corrected ASAP, which I am told is normal for teenage dog labs which settle when they get towards three years old.
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
Everyone has there own methods which suit them and the breed they tend to train, but even that will change slightly from dog to dog.
Generally speaking the worst thing u can do is punish/chastise a dog if it has came back to u off its own accord, no matter wot its done. Probably the thing u see most on a beating/picking up line too.
Really u just want to br putting lead on making it sit or walk on with no fuss wotso ever.
But I also would not praise the dog.
Ur best walking it on a bit nicely to heel a couple of good sits then heap praise on the dog.
If u chase after the dog and chase it down u could chastise it then if u wanted to.
The famous spaniel trainer Joe Irving used to say never let ur dog know u can't catch it.
Ie pick ur battles, in a big open space ur never really going to chase ur dog down unless ' the monster' works and the dog just clamps down.
If u want to run the dog down set up things in ur favour, bring some seaweed or wotever into a small narrow space, ideally with a long line on so u have more control.
Generally speaking the worst thing u can do is punish/chastise a dog if it has came back to u off its own accord, no matter wot its done. Probably the thing u see most on a beating/picking up line too.
Really u just want to br putting lead on making it sit or walk on with no fuss wotso ever.
But I also would not praise the dog.
Ur best walking it on a bit nicely to heel a couple of good sits then heap praise on the dog.
If u chase after the dog and chase it down u could chastise it then if u wanted to.
The famous spaniel trainer Joe Irving used to say never let ur dog know u can't catch it.
Ie pick ur battles, in a big open space ur never really going to chase ur dog down unless ' the monster' works and the dog just clamps down.
If u want to run the dog down set up things in ur favour, bring some seaweed or wotever into a small narrow space, ideally with a long line on so u have more control.
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
The old fashioned way for that would be to get out after the dog, walk it back to the spot it misbehaved and give it a row on that spot.
I've seen trainers run hundreds of ms across rough ground to catch there dog and then drag it back to the spot it 1st misbehaved, usually not sitting for a stop whistle.
For the OP if u have done the basics well I wouldn't worry to much possibly just a phase it will grow out off.
But I would go back over basics esp recall on a long line and insist they are 109% spot on.
Wether u use treats, high value treats, praise or retrieves to reward the dog is up to u or a mix of the lot.
Same if u use the stop whistle, reward the dog for stopping quickly by getting a retrieve.
I mind the 1st time I went to a pro trainer 15 odd year ago, nothing major wrong but dog just faffing about on way out/back from retrieves and I was trying to get it up to the next level.
He spent most time going over my basics, I thought my basics were OK, and they were for just a working dog, but ur never going to get a dog behaving at distance if it's only ok close in.
If u persevere with basics and not letting it off the lead where u think it might disobey it might grow out of it.
But the more it does it the bigger ur problem will become.
I can mind on quite a few occasions training with local gundog club when a few of us left dogs in the motor so a few of us could chase down wild labs, really we should of been in a smaller field.
But then dog learns it can't escape
once over i could run any dog down , i gave up the last time i tried - i did win in the end but i seriously thought i might drop dead of a hart attack i had already tuned fifty at the time , i think the dog gave up over fears for my life we could both be bloody minded but i miss him he passed away a few months back
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
I gave up on the idea of running the dog down very shortly after the purchase of my first GSP.
As for the idea that the OP’s dog is going through a phase, that’s only true if you cure it.
Once the behaviour becomes fixed you’re stuck with it for as long as the dog lives.
Best of luck with him.
I dont believe there is only one way to do anything to be fair , now the trainer handler might only know one way that's a different matter and i have never found that there is only one way to train a dog , indeed a friend in his eighties still is the go to man with sheep dogs no way at all could he run one down
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
I would imagine ur mate won't need to run a dog down as he won't let the dog get into that situation
If things go well u really shouldn't have too, chase dogs down, usually a sign something has gone wrong.
I don't know if it's a phase or not but it could be possible.
If ur confident u have put the ground work in with basics previously u can relax a wee bit and not panic as hopefully will grow out, just severely restricting any free play.
But wot ever u decide on the most important thing is not to allow ur dog the freedom to keep doing it and reinforcing the bad
Be well worth going out with someone or even seeing a pro trainer, or join a lical training club, even a dog obedience classes would help ( recall with distraction of other dogs).
Over the lifetime of ur dog not a big outlay.
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