Sam has training with me , on his own , most days, he adores the quality time even if its only a 20 mins session , he gets so excited when he sees Flynn going out to the garden with my husband and me putting the dummy in my bag with his slip lead. However , about four times a week , we go to a field on the edge of our village which the farmer kindly lets us use , for dog exercise . There are usually between 8 and 14 dogs when I go with my two , they all know one another , all the dogs are non aggressive , its a safe environment for them all to be off lead . What I wanted to ask is this , is allowing Sam to be a lunatic and fly around the field actually compromising his more serious training ? They do both come when called to go home, even when others are not leaving , he enjoys the sociability, they both do but I just wondered if this type of off lead play group session could interferr in any way with his training or should I just carry on and allow him to have this much loved time out ?
Re: It this a good thing to do, or not ? This is a difficult one. Personally, I do not encourage my dogs to play with dogs that they meet in public. The reason for this is that my priority is my gundog work. And gundogs need to be able to ignore other dogs. Some dogs are able to switch this kind of sociability on and off. Others, not so much. Some very sociable dogs become quite obsessive about playing with and even pestering, other dogs. And lots of opportunities for this kind of interaction seems to intensify rather than reduce this obsession. But, bearing in mind that Sam's recall is solid, and that he seems to have no problems with ending his play session. And bearing in mind that gundog work is probably not top of the list of your priorities. And, that this is a 'designated play area' in Sam's mind at least, my guess is that your choice should be to let Sam continue with these sessions in this particular place. It probably will do no harm, and clearly provides him with a lot of pleasure. You'll just need to keep an eye on how he relates to other dogs in different situations. Hope that helps Pippa
Re: It this a good thing to do, or not ? Thank you Pippa , Sam does appear to differentiate between the two situations . As an example , when we go training, it is to a small field near my home , rarely used by anyone else so few distractions for him . However, recently Sam was searching for his dummy in the dense thicket when a friend of mine came into the field with her dog . This is a dog with whom Sam plays in the large field and yet, to my amazement and pride too , he briefly looked up , saw the other dog but did not leave the job in hand , just carried on working, bless him , my friend was much impressed and Sam had two treats when he finally returned to me with his dummy I fully understand that the mad play with others isnt something I should be allowing if Sam were to become a working dog , just trying to strike a happy medium for him but if ever his recall began to suffer then I would call a halt to it for a while at least and take him back to basics .Thanks again
