Hi, Vanilla is pretty good on her recall in different situations and locations. We are still proofing, and picking these is always tricky, but we are getting there. Most times I am very proud of her, especially on the beach, when we see other dogs not coming back at all. Given that she is nearly 12months. I do have one that we are struggling with at the moment. The easiest way I think is to imagine a triangle (A,B,C). We will be at point A, and she will walk/run off to point B. We will blow the whistle and she will come back to point A no problem. Off she goes again towards point B, and we move to point C. She will look up and we always think that she sees us walking as she seems to look back to point A and realises that we are not there, but then stares (maybe 5sec) at us as we are walking towards point C. Then it just seems to fall apart, as we blow the whistle while standing at point C she will run back towards point A. Once she gets there, she will look around on the spot and realises that we are not there. It then takes her a few seconds to spot us and then she runs towards us. So she still comes back, but the long way round. Most annoying part is if other people are at point A, and they then engage with her, as they seem to think she is lost or has come to say hi. So we have stoped doing this on the beach, as it has happened twice. She will still come, it just takes her a couple of extra seconds as we have to shout to get her attention. How can I get her to come towards point C without the long way back? I have tried it where I thought she was looking at us, blew the whistle but she still ran towards the point B. I don't have this problem if she checks in with us, as she always get a treat. But I am really struggling on this one. I have tried it with no distractions on the oval that we use for training and I still get the same response. Any advise/pointers? Thanks
Thanks I did think about that, but even when I tried it once I got the same result. I will reduce it even more and somehow work on me to try and get it not confused with checking in with her.
It very much depends on how far away she is from you and how many other people are around you. Dogs can find it quite difficult to find the right person in a row of people. It is something I see quite often during training when a dog returns with the retrieve. All the dog can see is a line of people and depending on the light sometimes just silhouettes. Definitely shorten the distance and make sure there are not many distractions in the shape of other people around.
Thanks for the advise. One thing I have noticed is if I get down as I used to do when she was little she will come as fast as she can. She seems to be able to pick that out a lot better. Most probably as it is different to all the other people We raise our arm as we blow so hopefully we can transition to just standing with a raised arm.
