Recall issues

Raggs_2

Right, first off a bit of a background.

My dads an ex Royal Army Vetinary Corps dog trainer, and now works in civvie street. I've been out with him (I have a zoology degree and have studied large amounts of animal behaviour (though my fieldwork has been on primates)). I am pretty competent at this stuff, and can probably solve my own problems, but I've been hanging around these forums for a while and want to see if there's any good advice I can get. Always worth getting more info.

My fiancee and I decided to get a dog. We live in a flat, but since I work part time, 2 nights and 1 day, and her work is very local and relaxed (she goes home for lunch etc). We could take on a dog. There was no question about wanting a rescue dog, give it a better life.

So, the plan... Female, small-medium, short hair, adult, ugly (give something a chance that would be overlooked). The result. Male, large, long hair, 6 month puppy, gorgeous.

So, so much for plans. However, he was a rescue, and because of his breed and temperament I suspect would have spent most his life in the same situation we took him from (tied up in a garden).

As for breed, half golden retriever, and the other half we're 99% sure is Maremma sheepdog (anyone here with experience?). So in terms of breed traits that's he's been left with. Definitely Maremma in terms of obedience, basics are fine, though they are thought about (goto the maremma sheepdog uk site), but he'll never be a winner. Loving, clumsy elephant, happy to get along with cats (we now have a kitten/cat that runs upto him before us, walks under him lovingly caressing him with her tail etc, even the kittens mother doesn't mind him). Extremely upbeat (both breeds give estimates of puppyish behaviour until 2-3 years of age.) but very happy to just chill undestructively in the flat (as the maremma website advises about exercise, watch a flock of sheep, and that's what they're bred for).

Now, since he had no training before 6 months of age, I'm very happy with the vast majority of his behaviour now (year and a half), he really is a good dog. Sits and waits till told to eat (once sat for 20 mins since a phone call distracted my fiancee), walking to heel is constantly improving. Knows how to take things gently from hand, or just go for it, drops sticks/tug rope when told, if he does catch a hand in excited no real strength in the bite, instantly releases and waits till he is told to start playing again. And best of all from what I've read of both breeds, he doesn't bark (almost ever, only when in a fight/dreaming). And no he doesn't fight often, where we live most dogs are free roaming, and one or two dislike him (he only started one fight, and that was when a dog leapt up at me).

So all in all, a very good dog. Unfortunately his independant streak is a mile wide, and he views humans as definite equals (you can see him thinking about just why he should sit when told (again maremma trait)). Which means on odd occassion he decides to disappear on the mountainside we live next to (and walk up/alongside). And when I say disappear I don't mean goes wandering off the path for a few minutes before catching us up, but rather going for long periods of time. I trust him on the mountain, he is very good at maneuvering on it, won't let anything stop him, and I am sure he could find his way back. But obviously this is stressful for me, and whilst I take most of his wanderings in good humour (only way to survive), I would like to get a better command of getting him to heed me, and return.

So, advice? Short version for those who can't be bothered to read. Very very independent dog, want him to heed/recall better.

Obvious answer is obviously food/toy to tempt him back, but if he's running up the mountainside it almost certainly means whatever he's going for is more interesting than the stick he had (and he'll spend 10 minutes finding a favourite stick in bushes whilst I keep walking), which obviously makes it a challenge.

gettingready

Raggs wrote: »

So, the plan... Female, small-medium, short hair, adult, ugly (give something a chance that would be overlooked). The result. Male, large, long hair, 6 month puppy, gorgeous.

.

Sorry no advice from me as recall is ONE thing my ara mastered... just your plan and result made me laugh.....

Show us a photo of that great friend of yours pls

Raggs_2

I don't currently have any photos online to put up, but when I do I shall show you the lovers (small black cat and big white dog curled up together) and Louis (the dog) sporting his snazzy backpack.

The plan didn't quite come through, thankfully though he has naturally big paws, bones and joints, which now are fine (great even) but when you see a puppy like that, you wonder just how big it may get. He's now about 30-35kg, so not huge, but by no means small.

gettingready

My Zara is 35 kg so I can just about imagine.....

Her recall is fine - another story with barking the place down when I leave the flat and she knows it is NOT for work.....(read: I am allowed to go to work but nowhere else)

Raggs_2

Louis learnt that barking when we left achieved nothing but a stern No, and that's it. After a couple of days he realised it doesn't help, we are coming back, and we don't want him to make any noise. Since then he basically doesn't ever bark (which is quite nice). Giving him a favourite treat just before we left helped too, keep him calm.

gettingready

Tried all there is with Zara - nothing works.

Maybe that is why her recall is good, she just does ot like to be away from me in general, she is a GS after all LOL

But I am not going to hijak your thread...... all the best with the recall issues

Fire_Fox

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2036165
All of it, but especially from post 11.

Raggs_2

Lead work is fine and always improving.

As for post 11 onwards (as you mentioned the relevant part). Walking away doesn't work on a dog that is happy to wander on a mountainside for 5-10 minutes without even hearing you. I have to say that this is normally a great technique (it's not instant recall, but the dogs come back), but Louis is something special, I've never seen a dog so happy to just do his own thing. I've trained terriers before that would go off quarter of a mile down the beach, but the moment you start to walk round a barrier they came sprinting back. Louis will happily turn around and live you whilst he goes back that distance along the path (truly out of sight) because he forgot his stick at the last puddle.

As for the advice from sarabe it's useful stuff, and definitely things I will keep in mind if I do any dog training for friends, but overall I'm not sure how effective it will be with Louis. Will give it a shot though.

What would be great is if someone has experience of the Maremma breed, or another flock protection breed, since I'm reckoning it's these traits that are making him such a unique (at least in my experience) situation.

I know how irritating it is to have people sit there saying "None of this will work on my dog." But as I said I have a good amount of experience in dog training, and this dog really does seem to just decide to do as he wishes if the mood really takes him. 99% he's fine, it's just the 1% when whatever it is manages to outweigh the excitement of anything we may have (including sticks/branches), he's happy to be off on his own.

giantmutantbroccoli

When I was a teenager we had an adult rescue dog with a similar problem to what you describe, and we did manage to get some improvement in his behaviour. He was a black lab, not a guarding/herding breed, and I'm in no way shape or form an expert. I'm just going to outline what we did, and hopefully some of it might be of use to you.

When we got him he would run off, he never responded to what the previous owners insisted was his name, and he was impossible to let off the lead unless you could keep him within grabbing distance. He would stand right in front of you, with you calling him as nicely as you can, look right at you, then run off. If it was dark he wouldn't even pause to look at you when you shouted, because he figured you couldn't see him! We never cured him of his escape artist tactics -he was pretty sneaky when it came to sloping off - but we did manage to improve his recall to the point where you could take him for a walk off the lead without him dissapearing into the wild blue yonder.

The first step actually happened by accident. We were trying to get the dog excited, because he was very quiet and shy when we got him, so we started repeating his name (Rambo) in a variety of silly voices, chanting etc to try and get a response. Then my dad had the brilliant idea of trying other dogs names out on him, in case the reason he didn't respond was because Rambo wasn't actually his name. We went through all the most popular dog names we could think of, no response whatsoever, until we tried calling him Blackie. Then he had hysterics - he was bouncing up and down, barking, licking, wagging his tail, I'd never seen any dog so happy! The difference in him was amazing, it was like he suddenly recognised us as people for the first time - before that he acted like we were furniture or something.

The second thing we did, which might be more helpful, was trying to get him to see recall as a fun game rather than a command that he coudl ignore. I'm pretty sure that at some point he was beaten for not coming when called, so i tried to get him to associate recall with good things. I started off just bribing him with treats- call his name, hold out a treat, praise him when he came to get the treat. Then I started hiding from him, then calling him. It became a great game for him - I'd hide out of sight, whistle or call him by name, and he'd seek me out. When he found me, he'd get a treat or a game (or both) and lots of praise. Looking back I think it's similar to how they train rescue dogs (dogs for rescuing people, not rescued dogs ) I think it was the repetition that helped the most - he knew he wouldn't get a treat every time, but it happened often enough for him to thikn he might. Eventually it reached a point where he would come to me even after he'd run off on one of his excursions, but there was a catch - he'd only come to me if he couldn't see me straight off. Because I'd trained him to find me, just coming to me when he didn't have to search wasn't part of the game. Either that or he associated coming straight up to you with getting punished Never figured out which this was. It did mean that when he'd run off, I could go into the woods (where he usually ended up) , hide behind a tree and shout for him, and he'd turn up behind me.

If that doesn't sound like it would be useful, there is something else. We had terrible trouble in winter when we'd let the dog out at night for the toilet - he'd run out into the garden, then do his best to sneak away while you coudln't see him. We attached a great big bell to his collar - a giant jingley bell, not a cow bell and ever after we could tell where he was on walks, night-time excursions and when he'd escaped because we could just listen for the jingley noise. It didn't help us recall the dog, but it did make finding him in the dark a heck of a lot easier!

These days I guess you could go a bit more high tech, and maybe stick a GPS locator on him or some sort of tracking device - obviously not a solution for recall, but good for your piece of mind.

Raggs_2

Louis (as in Louis the Fourteenth), is definitely his name, so no issue there (though that is a great story , once trained a dog with my dad that would happily respond to "scrubbing brush" just as well as it's name).

As for the recall, with treats is a normal route, and one I intend to put into serious practice, however the hiding idea is brilliant, treats are only so exciting for him. He enjoys searching for his chew in the flat (make him sit in the bathroom whilst I hide it somewhere). So hopefully the game will extend from there. And also since it tends to be woody mountainside he disappears in there's always a searching process needed.

The reassuring thing is about him that even with a backpack on he'll go through bushes, up steep mountainside and generally try and move heaven and earth to get to where he wants to be, which will eventually be home.

supermezzo

As he's already trained to wait for food, have you thought about using a whistle? We have assistance dogs and they are trained to eat to the whistle - three short blows and then allow them to eat (the idea being that they associate the whistle with food/good stuff and hurtle back to you). Sometimes more effective than others when you first start but in an older 'pup' might be enough to pique his interest in coming back to you, especially if you have a selection of treats only used for off lead adventures.
Or a specific toy which you can both play with when he returns to you, such as a tug rope or a squeaky toy ( I learnt the hard way that you need two toys as you need to keep one to entice the dog back whe he's run off with the other one!). I guess you know this, but mostly, you need to be more exciting then the other stuff around him, which kinda comes with time and patience. Also, if the poor soul has been tied up in a garden before he came to you, then it may take him a while to 'get bored' of the 'wow' factor of being off his lead in allllllll that space.

Edited to add - At that size, make sure your recall procedure includes the dog running to your front and sitting before he egts to you else he'll send you flying!