Hello all, I have a four month old black lab puppy that keeps me on my toes. Just learning everything from scratch. In the past I have always had a rescue older dog, and I am now discovering how different it is to have a puppy. At the moment I am trying to train Bess to come to me to have lead put back on after a walk and I have found out I always need to have treats, otherwise I’ve got no chance. So recall is my No. 1 learning curve.
Hi Irene and Bess, welcome to the forum! Puppies sure are a whirlwind I'm sure you'll get lots of tips about getting Bess's lead back on, but three things which helped me and my dog as a puppy were: - either touching his harness/taking hold of his harness and letting go again/or clipping his lead on and off whenever he checked in with me during a walk, and giving him a treat at the same time - so that he doesn't automatically make the connection between me reaching for his harness, and the walk being over - reattaching his lead at a different point towards the end of each walk - so not always at the gate He's 7 months now, and posing a whole bunch of new recall problems, but these things really helped back then, and I hope they help you too! Good luck and let us know how you get on
Meg is nearly 6. She has a robust recall, she’s awesome. I can call her away from anything. She still gets treats, not always...bit of a treat lottery but there is always something in my pocket. Admittedly now is a pretty dull dry biscuit but for her first good year or so the treat value was considerably higher. They were slowly weaned off once her recall was proofed, which is work in progress for some months. Keep treating I would say, as for labs it’s a fantastic training tool.
