Hello - I'm new to this forum and would really appreciate advice from other users please. We have a 16 month old chocolate lab, Martha, who is from a working line. We couldn't wish for a better behaved dog 95% of the time, especially around the house, with children and when walking on a lead. The problem which has developed over the last month or so is that, after responding really well on walks to lots of mini recalls, getting lots of praise and treats, there comes a point, and there's no telling when she will reach that point, where she suddenly decides that she isn't going to come back - for anything! She doesn't run away, but will follow us, deliberately keeping about 2 or 3 feet away and will refuse to allow us to take hold of her collar. Once she has this mood upon her, having previously been immaculately behaved on a walk, she wont come back for anything and it's then a case of either finding a really narrow path to go down, hoping she will follow and then can be caught hold of or sometimes being able to tempt her with a stick and being able to grab her when that gets her attention. The trigger sometimes seems to be big open spaces (but not always), or if she is reprimanded e.g. for eating something undesirable. It can (but again not always) also happen if a toy is being throw for her. She will retrieve it quite happily for 3 or 4 goes and then she decides she isn't bringing it back to either of us and she is just going to dance around about 2 feet away just out of reach! My 2 questions are , does anyone have any suggestions as to how we proceed to stop her getting into this habit and what could we do when she does decide that she isn't going to allow her collar to be taken hold of. I use very high value treats with her (hot dog sausages), lots of praise and am trying to practise retrieves with her on a long line. Any other suggestions would be so very gratefully received as she's such a gorgeous dog, but walks can be a bit stressful! Thanks in advance!
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! Hi there, it is quite common for young dogs to develop an aversion to being put on the lead. Dogs that do this tend to stay just out of reach when the time comes for the walk to end. The cause is that the dog has built up a negative association around being caught or leashed. This is because it is easy to fall into a habit of only catching the dog and put him on a lead, at the end of each walk, and failing to leash the dog during the early part of the walk. He therefore associates being caught or leashed with the end of fun time. The solution, is to repeatedly catch, leash and release the dog throughout each walk, instead of just at the end, when all the fun is taken away. And to associate being leashed with very high value rewards initially. If the problem is very bad, you may have to feed your dog's entire daily food ration in this way to begin with. The key thing to remember is that of all the total times you catch your dog and leash him, on far more of those times you should give him a treat or a game, and then release him again. Hope that helps
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! Hi Pippa Thanks so much for your reply. As well as lots of mini recalls where I just take hold of her collar and reward her with lots of praise and treats, I do call her back on a walk and put her on the lead at least 4 times during an hour's walk. She is more than happy to be put on the lead at those times. From what you suggest though I sound like I need to be doing this much more often than 4 times? However, suddenly (and there's no telling when that might be) she will decide that she isn't going to come close enough to be put on it. "Exciting" things (like retrieving which she loves), the freedom of a big field rather than a path with hedges on either side or something undesirable to eat seem to trigger this behaviour rather than the end of the walk. I do get what you're saying though and wonder if I should stop getting her to retrieve whilst on a walk (I'm doing this with her on a long line at the moment) and just try to keep her calm and walk, calling her back really often. As I said, all help really gratefully received!
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! If she enjoys retrieving you can use this as a reward. Make it contingent on being caught and put on a long line at the end of a walk. Do you take her home from the walk in your car? If so, make getting back in the car a huge treat. Also it would be a good idea to feed her at the end of a walk. Anything which makes the end of the walk a positive thing. At the same time, working on all aspects of your recall and on the concept of using you to get what she wants (see the labrador recall challenge for more info on this ) will all help.
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! We resently had some recall issues with Odin too. He would return to us 6 times and then decide thats enough and just stay out of our reach. Our dog trainer told us that we should avoid putting him on leash every time we call him so he's not associating coming back with being put on leash. So we've only put him on leash 1 out of 10 recalls on our walks for some weeks and things got way better.
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! It doesn't matter how many times you leash the dog if you reinforce the act of being leashed with high value rewards. The important thing is to avoid the leash becoming aversive to the dog.
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! It's a good practice to put the dog on the leash, reward hugely, then immediately let them off the leash again. Do it lots. That way, being put on the leash is not predictive of the end of the fun.
Re: Previously good recall going pear shaped - help please! I've always done exactly what Rachael says and we have never had any leash return issues thankfully
