Hi, My 16 Month Springador Skylar was doing really well while off leash but has recently started showing some negative signs. Up until now her recall was good, she would generally engage well and would not get herself into trouble. She is super friendly with dogs and people and walks were generally a pleasure. However she has recently started to pick up ‘things’ while on walks and then will not recall or listen and on a couple of occasions has run away from me and shown reluctance to come back. The ‘things’ she picks up is often other dogs’ poo which she quickly eats, she will find bread and other food debris occasionally as well. She also occasionally picks up other troubling items like bones which she will run off with and try to eat. When she picks up things she should not I will often try to work on the ‘leave it’ command which she was generally very good at. However I feel that her ‘leave it’, ‘come’ when called and general engagement have really taken a decline. Sometimes I feel that her walks have become a situation where she just seeks out one dog poo after another until I eventually just have to keep on her leash and head home... This is not all the time though - most of the time while off leash she still recalls well and behaves positively, sticking close and returning quickly to a verbal recall. She rarely goes out of my site and this is why its quite troubling that on a few occasions recently she has run off to seek out something to consume. I have resorted to keeping her on leash for the time being. I use a long-line (10m leash) and try to do some fetch games and engagement activities which are generally positive, but often after a few minutes she will lose interest and seek out some poo to eat! Other than that I am keeping her on a short leash or a 5m house line which is not great for her as she was previously so positive off leash and loves to run about and explore. I keep trying to work on ‘leave it’ and engagement activities both at home and on walks and am hoping this works in time. I have let her off briefly a couple of times and occasionally given her more freedom on the long line but she keeps on just finding things she shouldn’t, and on one occasion she ran away with the long line attached to find a pile of bread about 200m away from me. Finally, I am working on a new recall with a whistle but this is in the early stages (From the book ‘Total Recall’, which is excellent!) and I am concerned that even with perfect recall she is just going to keep running off and picking things up. Any and all advice is welcome. I am concerned that I have ‘accidentally trained’ some of these behaviours and so I need to retrain aspects as she has been self rewarding so much while off leash. I especially think that I have inadvertently encouraged the poo eating from my reaction too it, but any help in now reversing this habit would be much appreciated
Honestly, I will never walk my aussie off-leash. I’ll take her to a dog park or let her run in a fenced yard, but I don’t want to risk her getting distracted by something and running into the road or eating something dangerous. Kodi nox
Could you get to a positive obedience class. That’s how I managed to secure Megs recall. Training around distractions is so beneficial.
That’s a shame, I hardly ever have Meg on a lead. Her recall is really robust. A year of obedience classes helped and she has a fabulous time exploring her world.
