Hi I have a 17 week old puppy who is brilliant at coming back to his whistle in the house and out and about, however as soon as he sees another dog he bolts towards it no matter how far away it is and will not come back while he is mid run until he has said a good hello. - I am now trying not to call him when he is mid run as I dont want to poison my cue. If i see the other dog before him I call him back and pop him on the lead then ask him to sit while the dog goes by - he s pretty good at this but it takes a lot of high value treats to hold his attention. I am also asking him to sit before he is let off the lead to play with other dogs. I think this is partly my fault as when he was younger I encouraged him to play with dogs I knew were friendly. I think in his eyes now all dogs are friendly and he it's fun to play with them. Apologies for the essay but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. Does anyone have any tips on how I can start to work on this? Thank you
If you can find a good training class this would be a way of practising recall where there are other dogs around, but in a controlled environment. I took Molly to a class for the good citizen award puppy level and we worked at keeping our puppies focused on us rather than them being allowed to play with each other ( though I do think opportunities to greet other dogs are important too.) In addition, I'd suggest taking toys with you and playing with your puppy so that you become their centre of attention. I also gave food rewards not just for recall but any time Molly was within an arm's length of me without being called.
This is EXACTLY how Saba behaves, so for the time being, I keep him on his lead. We re-start training classes this week; I 'interviewed' loads of trainers before settling on this new class, and am hopeful that I'll learn how to proof his recall once and for all. Now 11 months old, Saba looks less like a puppy, so when he does misbehave, other owners are less understanding. I get so disheartened when after several good sessions with Saba, he seems to forget absolutely everything!
