I was on one of my usual reservoir walks, sitting on a bench watching the dogs play when a sheep suddenly came out of the trees behind me. Tatze hared off, chasing it down the track and Zaba was scared and legged it off in the other direction. Help!! I swore a few times, stood there like a numpty, then gathered my thoughts and blew the whistle. Both came hearing back - phew! Thank goodness for whistle recall, thank goodness for this site, which taught me to teach it to Tatze, thank you to Pippa for your book Total Recall, which I still refer to. The photo shows where I was, it's usually sheep-free, this one must have got loose. The dogs spent the rest of the walk on leads, just in case - which means we'll go on a longer one this afternoon. Phew!! I wish it was GIN O'Clock but coffee will have to do to calm me down. I had awful visions ...
That's the one book I still need to get, Total Recall. Probably should order it sharpish.. There's a few sheep around here!
Well done for the recall whistle! I was caught out recently as I use a vocal whistle recall... fine until it dries up because of fear!! I was walking the girls where we walk most days... huge area of parkland with a herd of quite friendly young cows. We keep our distance and the girls are fine, having been trained by my partner, an ex cattle farmer, how to behave around stock. However, when walking alone, I'm still very cautious and always locate the herd and head off in the opposite direction. A week or so ago I couldn't see the cattle anywhere, so assumed they'd been moved to the adjacent lush field, which seemed a reasonable assumption, as the farmer does rotate, and we can always see the cattle when they are in the main parkland. What I couldn't have known is that they were sheltering, completely hidden from view, in a sunken dell... the dell into which my dogs always run enthusiastically to smell lovely rabbity smells! I was lost in my thoughts, sauntering along, enjoying the beautiful day, and suddenly there was a thunderous noise of cattle hooves swiftly exiting the dell, followed by Anna, who was as surprised to find them as they were to see her. Her first instinct was to continue chasing them... well, if something runs you chase it, don't you?!! I tried to find my voice whistle, but it wouldn't come for a bit... think herd of cows not that far away... blood pressure into orbit... thankfully, the cows stopped quite quickly and were calm again when they understood that it was Anna (they have met before in controlled circumstances), who, when they stopped, also stopped. My voice returned and I whistled her back, but it was really scary and made me realise that, just because you can't see stock, it doesn't mean they're not there. I think we may need to invest in a proper dog whistle and increase the training. Funnily enough I used a whistle with them originally when we first adopted them, but it was my late brother's vocal whistle that I replicated which was always more effective. Makes me think that he's there with me helping me, which is nice.
My hearts pounding just reading your post! It reminds us how easily the unexpected can happen and how important a strong recall needs to be.
The unexpected sheep must have been a real shock - thank goodness Tatze stopped chasing - and the cattle scary in a different way ( I'd have been frightened my dog was going to be trampled!)
