I was lucky enough to rehome a 5yr old retired Guide Dog last December. Kristian. One of the reasons he was retired was that his recall wasn't great. Until a couple of weeks ago his recall was "ok" and I had no cause for concern. However, one day he just shot off on a huge area of the Downs, he was completely oblivious to me and I only managed to catch him when he ran up to someone and they held him for me. I know I did all the wrong things, like running after him, but I really thought that I'd seen the last of him. I had a similar problem a few days later when he saw a playing field through a hedge and shot through it. Since then I've started working through Total Recall, and only walked him off lead in quiet area where he can't see far, meadows with long grass etc. Upped my treat values. Otherwise he is a great dog, and because he is ex-guide dog, he is amazingly biddable. He's trained to wait for his food to the whistle. My GD puppy walking supervisor popped round for a social visit, (I have puppy walked previously) and suggested that now he has settled in after 6 months, he's become a bit blasé with recall. My question is; he responds to the whistle for his food, but now ignores it for recall. Should I try a different pitched whistle? Or what other sound can I try? Thanks
You could just use a different pattern, rather than changing the actual whistle. What was the pattern you used before? Normal recall patterns are three pips, five pips, or a series of three. I do three normally, but three lots of three is an emergency recall. In The Other End of the Leash, it says that fast noises (pip pip pip) are better for making a dog (or any other animal) speed up and slow noises (peeeeeeeep) are better for making them slow down. As the author travelled, she investigated different languages and how they applied to animal training; she found that consistently, whatever the language, and whatever the animal, this held true. Think "Mush! Mush!", "Get on" etc compared to "Wooooooaah", "Slooooooowly" etc.
Hi there, welcome to the Forum. I had a very similar question recently, in my case with my 14 month old who I've had since 8 weeks, so different circumstances, but I felt her recall wasn't as good as I want due I think to me over doing the use of whistle and her getting blasé. So after the answers to my post I did decide to use my 3 pips whistle working on the theory that I would be heavily reinforcing it's use by following the steps in Total Recall. It seems to be effective so far. I'm sure you'll get answers from more experienced members. Kristian sounds a lovely dog, it's a great way to get a new dog I'm sure.
Selina, I have found your thread, and it resonates with mine. I do the about-turn and walk away, he's not beyond hope, I just want to feel confident that he will recall. He's not even interested in other dogs (I think it's a GD thing). I'm thinking about getting some professional help.
