Hi, I do not have a Labrador but I do have a dog who needs a better recall. I started whistle recalls and she responds to hem but now, she occasionally doesn't.... I bought Pippa's book and realized that I had taken some wrong turns in the training. Can I retrain the whistle? Right now, the recall is double pip "pip,pip"...can I retrain using the "pip,pip,pip,pip,pip"? From what I have read, people have trained their dogs to understand different pip frequencies for coming, stopping, turning, etc...advice would be greatly appreciated.
I use a series of pip-pip-pips for recall. I can't even tell you how many, have never really counted them. I can't see any reason why you couldn't retrain the recall using several pips rather than just two. What breed is your dog? And welcome to the forum.
HI back and thx for the welcome! I am a little confused with the Forum right now...wanted to insert a photo of Jazz but couldn't figure out how so I turned her into my avatar...She is almost 2.5 yrs old and I made many mistakes with training her so am now trying to make some amends
Hi there and welcome. Unless you are a "Forum Supporter" you need to use a 3rd party photo host like Flickr or Photobucket to store your photos then paste the link for your picture to pop up (check out Technical & Help section) If you like us and want to stick around, paying £10 annually to be a supporter means you can upload photos directly - easier for sure! Hope that helps.
Oh, I also wanted to add that Jazz is a rescue pup - got her at 9 weeks old. She is a collie mix - golden retriever? Pyrenees? definitely collie, probably Border as we have many here. She weighs 70 lbs (about 31.75 kg).
Whatever you choose be consistent in number and speed of pips. Don't forget to get Pippa's Total Recall book, it's the recall bible ----> (She changed her name to Pippa because of the recall 'Pips') ...
Yes, dogs can distinguish between the number and pattern of pips, so changing it to five pips (or whatever other number you fancied) would be fine. I believe that generally, three or five pips is normal for recall, a long peep for stop, two pips for a turn and a pip-peep combo for a hunt. But plenty of people have their own patterns that work just fine.
I think you would be able to train your dog to any combination of pips for the recall, the fact is that you have to 'Train it' Start over at feed time and progress from there. Not like the lady I met the other week, who was watching me doing some training in a local field. She approached me and said 'I have just bought one of those whistles but my dog does not respond to it'
I think you may have difficulty changing the pips unless you leave a good break in between before you switch. Use a hand signal or verbal for a couple of months before going back and changing the pip numbers. This especially if you want pips for other things. For me, we call them tweets, one tweet is sit at a distance. Three tweets is COME. I was taught it's harder for the dog to learn the sit, even more so if you train the recall first, so train the sit first. Still, I'd leave a good space of time between that and what you are doing now as well.
@JadedJazzman welcome to the forum, Jazz is a beautiful girl. I don't have any further advice on the whistle recall everyone seems to have all the main points covered.
Nothing announces a hopeless trainer more than a whistle recall blown over and over....I was in a massive field on top of a cliff in Cornwall and I could hear this chap approaching with 2 out of control dogs from half a mile away. He was blowing a recall constantly, and both dogs were completely and utterly ignoring him. Sure enough, when the dogs got close enough, they ran over to Charlie and proceeded to tear round me and Charlie like banshees. Chap, still blowing his recall, starts signalling a directional left to his dogs! What? What? Like the last thing they are doing is looking at you mate! In the end, he had to come and get them, and it took him 15 minutes to put some kind of halti contraption on each dog so he could walk them away on lead! Jeez....I'm sure he'll be sending the whistle back complaining it doesn't work!
Thx to all and thx Pilatelover for the compliment. I do have another question: Can I still use my original "pip,pip" signal or should I start over with the 3x3 pips? The initial signal was never poisoned as such...only good things happened. However, I may have placed her in too high a distraction too early. I could call her away from other dogs and then one day, it's as if it was all gone - she ran up to a man (likes people but not good), ran up to a dog, ignored me while sniffing. Other than that, she'd come barging into the house from the yard on hearing the "pip,pip". When playing Frisbee in an enclosed baseball field, she'd come speeding back. I do have Pippa's book and read about "variable intermittent reinforcement". I realized that Jazz always got her high value ham when she came so there was nothing she had to gamble on. So, to return to my question: Is the "pip,pip" salvageable or do I start with a totally new 3x3? (of course, following the Total recall instructions to the letter) Thank you very much. I really want Jazz to have this down rock solid (though her prey drive may pose a few more challenges)
so many responses that I miss them...sounds good what you're saying....give it a break....I will have to keep her from practicing her chase/prey drive for a while...she's pretty good with "come" w/o distractions...I need something much more reliable though
Everyone experiences recall failure from time to time. If you had to change your cue every time, it would be very tedious indeed! So, I suppose the answer to your question, "do I have to change it?" depends on how frequently it's failed. If it's just a couple of times, then I'd stick to the same one. If, however, you've been using it over and over without your dog responding, then she's learned to ignore it and you'd be better off changing it. If your dog doesn't have a stop whistle cue, then I agree that it would be worth training this. When Shadow is about to chase something, I find it far easier to stop him then recall, rather than just recall. Of course, this means working on creating a strong, proofed, stop whistle cue
Hey Snowbunny! Thx1 I get so confused...this is my 2nd dog and my 1st one was/is super easy...anyway, let's not talk about the mistakes I made with #2 . So, her response to my double PIP cue is excellent....except when there is another dog, kind of ( b/c in the dog park, she comes back when I whistle - hard to figure dogs out at times). anyway, just tried it out in the yard...both dogs went down the stairs to the backyard, I whistled and Jazz whipped up the stairs...so maybe I should step back a bit and do the PIPs while handing out some good, raw beef...then proceed, sort of like the book says. I think it is more a tweak that needs to be done when the distractions start to trump the whistle...
