On my regular daily walks I don't mind if Snowie goes off any distance. I am useless at measurements - am guessing he ranges 100m? And if he stops to sniff and inspect, I'll range from him. If he's out of sight too long for my liking, I'll call and he'll make himself seen - as soon as he knows I can see him, he carries on his sniffing/marking business. When he gets to a fork in the path, he'll wait for me - which warms my heart every time and he gets lots of verbal praise. I used to call him all the time as a pup until a friend said it's his responsibility to stick with me. As soon as I changed my mindset and stopped calling him, he started to check in a lot (I used treats then, also hid behind trees, about turns, etc) and even now, I can see he is checking I'm around, and gets worried if he can't see me (I can see he's looking for me) - then I call out to him (not recall) and he either comes racing back or visibly relaxes and carries on sniffing.
OK, im probably the most uptight. She is a city dog, so of course there i keep her on a leash. but when we go to the country, i still like her in my vision. she has taken to going into the wooded area. she used to keep me in her sight, but since she has been roaming with her brother who is my sons dog and visits frequently, they go further afield. She is not the best on recall, i have to work more with that. any suggestion on how to teach her to come back more often or at least when called would be appreciated.
I have found my youngest dog, Bramble is prone to roaming when out with either one, or both ( I have three ) I think she feels more confident,( Benson is very assured out and about..) and aware that I am a bit distracted. So, the majority of my walks with her are 1-1's where I do lots of work on making myself interesting, and rewarding her for focus on me (check-ins) however, saying all that I do pick my battles, so when working on recall, I take her to places that are moderately challenging...but not enough that she will be overstimulated by her surroundings. You can limit the excitement levels however, by popping them on a lead for a short duration, getting them to some focus games, before letting them play for a bit together. It is difficult though walking young dogs together, especially if they find each other super exciting! If the area is safe, I don't bother much with cues, they are going to ignore me anyway, and it's not worth poisoning my cues trying to get the attention of dogs that area having way too much fun! A really invaluable book on training a good recall is "Total Recall" by Pippa Mattinson
I'm at the uptight end of the spectrum, but I think with good reason. Indie loves chasing after scent and free hunting, and is quite happy to lose sight of me for a while if a scent has captured her attention. I do all the about-turns, hiding, sausage trees, hand touches, bursts of fun heel work with chicken, retrieves etc etc, and she is like a normal, well-trained, focussed dog when there aren't scent trails about, but I can't ever relax as she much prefers chasing a pheasant scent than even a whole sausage forest! So if I let her roam, I risk her coming across a rabbit or pheasant and chasing for goodness knows how far so in general I use a 10m long line and keep in reach of the end, and am in constant engagement with her. I'd love to have a relaxed walk and enjoy watching her run about having fun, but sadly it's mostly tiring and stressful I can't even hold a conversation with the husband when Indie is off lead because it takes so much energy preempting her and being 'fun' so he has stopped coming on walks with me Sorry in self-pitying mode tonight! But want to say that if you have a dog that can range any reasonable distance and regularly check back on you, enjoy it and my next dog will be a pug-in-a-jumper that I can outrun
I must be odd one out, it is up to my dogs to keep their eyes on me (of course if we were near sheep or cattle or children then they would be on the lead), it really irritates me that the two people I walk with are continually calling their dog - intolerant moi - yes!
Well I think in the main I am with you there. I never knew about the about turn walk before and I've done it ever since she was tiny, and she does keep her eye on me. I no longer call her back everytime she looks at me, I felt it was boring for her and me and led to a rather dull recall. But I do now toss a reward down and ask her to find it ,now and then. just to keep her interested. So far so good. But I am working through Total Recall to improve actually returning right to me when necessary as that's not reliable yet. I've had dogs in the past with bad recall and I know it isn't fun
Thank you. i will take that into consideration. Yes her brother and her are 17 months now but he is much more outgoing and she definitely shows that she is more confident when with him. I will try to make my self more interesting and see how that works, will look for the book as well again thank you.
I like Coco to be within sight. He usually is. I love him to be near & checking in, but I also love him to have a bit of freedom to just be a dog. The rider is that there are no other dogs/people around. Rarely, he will bolt after something, usually another dog I haven't seen, sometimes a bird. This I don't like.
In the last few days, I've really knuckled down on this, and it's worked wonders. As I said above, the problem isn't with 1-2-1 walks, I have great connection on those, but rather when they're all out together. Shadow is the worst for going self-employed. So, I've been taking all three out, but focussing mainly on him. Every time his ears flicked back, I'd call "good boy" and toss him a treat or, on occasion, a jackpot of a ball. If he went too far, I'd start walking off the track, rather than just turning 180 degrees - this is easier said than done as the undergrowth is really thick, but I think he was getting complacent about knowing I'd alway be along the path somewhere. Within a couple of sessions, he's now no longer ranging out of vision, even on the woodland paths. He's constantly checking in. OK, this was just brushing up on skills he already had, but which had slipped, so I'm not suggesting it'll be as immediate for people who haven't used these techniques before, but I'm very pleased. With the extra connection we're having, I also easily called him off a chase of an oscillated lizard. The two girls are just happy to amble at my side when he's not off exploring.
@Lara I'm with you, it is painful. There's no such thing as a relaxing walk with Charlie Thank goodness I have Hattie to balance my doggie life!! xx
I think it depends on your dog's personality and where you walk them. Here, in a city, vehicles drive through some of the parks, and in the woods they are cutting down trees so there are huge trucks driving through and people with chainsaws. This combined with lots of cyclists, and the normal city things, mean that even though we go at quiet times, I can't let Lucky get 100m away from me. It's not safe for him, and I don't think it's fair on other people to have the owner 100m away in a city park. Plus, Lucky can't be trusted 100% to ignore people, he's getting much better at ignoring joggers stretching and people doing yoga though! If we walked in fields in the countryside, I'd be quite happy for him to get further away, because he doesn't have any hunting instincts. I like to be consistent wherever we are about keeping him near, because it's not fair to expect him to understand different boundaries in different places.
Lucky you!! and there lies the difference in owning a non hunting dog as opposed to a hunting dog. I think Lara and I are the only owners of Point x Labradors on the forum. Nobody can quite understand how very difficult it is to own any dog with Pointer genes, also Indie and Charlie are rescues so having to undo bad behaviours is one massive task which has certainly taken us almost 6 years xx
Urgh five more years of capering around the fields throwing sardines for me then...I think I grow another grey hair every walk and everyone in the village thinks I am a lunatic!
I was being generous, we are still training and Charlie is 6 1/2 years old. Don't talk to me about grey hair x
