I've been working hard with 8 month old Jessie on walking to heal, impulse control around other dogs and people and recall. In some ways I feel we have made massive progress. We had an amazing walk yesterday,where she walked beautifully at heal through our busy market town, past a number of distractions. Then I let her off the lead and she was recalling brilliantly until we were surprised by a jogger coming quietly up behind me and I had my first 'Fenton' moment (you tube sensation of a posh man calling repeatedly after his dog Fenton as it ignores him and runs at speed after deer in Richmond park). She was off, much to my horror and humiliation! Thankfully he stopped, she came back and he was nice about it. But felt like such a low! What is it best to do in this situation, once recall had failed I stopped calling her, is that right? Then today we had another walk in the same field and were surprised by some blooming fishermen who stood up suddenly from behind some long grass! She was about to rush off again, but sort of checked herself and came back to my call, which felt like a massive achievement. Is it normal for training to feel like such a rollercoaster??
Totally normal and I think Jessie did remarkably well as she is only 8 months old. The events over the weekend just highlight a couple of areas for you to try and cover in training - joggers and people popping up unexpectedly although lots of credit to Jessie that she responded to you when the fishermen popped up I wouldn't keep using the recall if she's running away from you as it could end up with a broken recall cue. You and Jessie are doing really well so don't get downhearted over a couple of things that didn't go so well - they're just training opportunities
Sounds like more highs than lows to me! Training is all about learning what needs to be done and addressing that, and all through your girl's life things will pop up you hadn't ever have thought of. At almost 6 year old I discovered Lilly didn't like people in motorcycle helmets. Bike helmets fine, but motorcycle ones? Nope, they needed a good barking at! Think you did right with stopping that recall too - you don't want to break it! jac
I think you did really well and I totally agree that there are way more highs than lows there If you haven't proofed against joggers running up silently behind you and she runs off then that's not a 'training fail', just a training 'to do'. Sounds to me like your training is really effective and you should be really proud of how well Jessie is going
Agreed! Celebrate your achievements, try not to focus on the errors. As the others have said, it just shows you where you need more work.
Thank you so much for all your support. I have been working so hard with her. I can't believe how hard it has been. I feel we are making progress, but everyone is right, I really need to view the downs as areas we need to work on more.
I think you should be really pleased with where you're at! Sounds like she's getting on really well. I know it's easy to get fixated on the things that haven't gone to plan, and then forget about all the excellent behaviour your dog has shown that day. (This is a reminder to myself as well, Pepper is being useless with distractions at the moment, stopping and staring at everything. Grrr!) Xx
