Hi All, While I have often used this site for help and tips, I have yet to post …. Until now. I’m hoping you can all give me some advice as I’m out of ideas ! Torvi is my 17 month old Lab . I have had her from 8 weeks and together we have navigated our way through training with the use of forums, such as this one , books and a little common sense. However there is one issue I can not resolve…. Free Hunting. While I am incredibly lucky,that our daily walks are in our local forest ,the draw back is that for a dog with a high pry drive ,it’s like Xmas . If Torvi gets a scent,or a squirrel or dear run out, any command I give is ignored . She is never gone for long , couple of minutes at most but she is out of sight and that’s not ok for me. These are a few things I have tried to combat the problem. Long line … 5 months on a long line , worked well as she couldn’t chase with my foot on the line , I would use leave command at the same time,however the first day I decided to try her without it she disappeared chasing a scent. I always take her dummy out on walks as she loves to retrieve or hunt it out , however she will lose interest on the retrieve if she picks up a scent on route ♀️ Most of our walk on lead , but stops along the way where I will do some retrieves with her , which is fine unless she gets a scent. Her whistle commands are good at all other times , recall whistle, stop whistle and change of direction. No matter how much I practice at home or on a walk it doesn’t come into play if a scent is smelt! Any ideas would be greatly appreciated Carla
Hi Carla, could you please indicate how you have trained your dog for distractions such as wild animals, scents on the wind? If your dog sees other dogs running around, does your recall signal work immediately?
