Retriever running away on walk!

Scubabe

What kind of retriever do you have? A golden? Is it food or toy oriented? If it is food oriented follow my guide below, if it is toy oriented, then replace a food treat with a toy treat - e.g. a quick 10 second tug game, or a throw of the ball etc

I honestly don't mean to be rude here, but your hubby is not interesting enough, that is why he doesn't come back - because something else is more interesting. You need to find out what floats his boat and use that to train him in a recall.

I highly recommend training recall to the whistle.
Look up Acme gundog whistles on google and buy 2-3 of them, so you can have one in the house, one in the car, one in your dog walking coat. I'd recommend a 210.5 whistle (they come in many different pitches) - this way if you lose one of them you can always buy another and you can ensure it is the right pitch.

To begin with when you start recall training on the whistle just have the whistle in your mouth when you are putting his breakfast & dinner down. Give 3 short "pips" on the whistle as he starts running towards you & the food bowl. Voila, you have just done stage one - rewarded him for coming when you recall him.

Honestly though the 3 pips thing - if you only want to do one pip that's cool, I use 3 pips as my recall because I train loads of different commands to the whistle so each whistle has to be different. If you want to just use one pip that's fine.

Do this religiously for a week.

Then, in the house, when he is across the other side of the room, have some ham or garlic sausage or chicken or cheese or something. Call "Fido, Come!" then wave the ham at him. As soon as he begins to run towards you, blow the recall (3 pips, or whatever you have chosen). Again, when he gets to you, reward him with the food. Do this a couple of times a day, every day for 2 weeks. Make the treats really smelly and yummy and really high-value. You can't scrimp on this, the treats HAVE to be the absolute bees knees, and vary them often (e.g. different type of treat every day or two - do this MSE-wise by buying value cheese and sandwich ham in large blocks from ASDA, I can spend £4 on the value sandwich ham in the pre-packed area and get enough ham, that when I chop it up into tiny training pieces and freeze it in portion bags I have about a months worth). Gradually work up to getting him being in a different room when you call the recall and then ONLY blow the 3 pips on the whistle *when he is already moving towards you*. That is the important part - he needs to be already doing the action when you pip so that he associates the pips with what he is doing at THAT EXACT SECOND IN TIME. Not 5 seconds earlier, and not "what he is about to do in 5 seonds time" - but at that exact second.

After a couple of weeks of this, try just blowing the whistle without the verbal command, and see if he recalls to you. If he does, instant treat and LOADS (I mean absolutely loads of over the top praise like he has just discovered the cure to cancer) of praise.

Once he can recall to the whistle in the house perfectly, try it in the back garden. Do this a few times every day.

Once you have been doing this in your house and garden for a few weeks, try it in a REALLY boring park, with absolutely NO other distractions, and him ON A LONG LINE (like the ones suggested to you above). Again, loads and LOADS of really over the top praise. Do this maybe 4-5 times in a walk. Keep it up at home all the time.

Pretty soon, he has worked out that 3 pips = he comes racing over to you full tilt and he gets a gorgeous huge big juicy treat. After a week or so of doing it on long line, try it off lead. Once he can do it offlead (remember, you must treat *each and every single time*) then you can up the ante a little and try doing it in a busier park with more distractions etc... until eventually he will do it each and every time anywhere. Don't move on to the next step until he has had the previous step perfect for 3-4 days though.

Only once he's doing it each time can you start to drop back on the treats - then drop back to treat&praise/just praise/treat&praise/just praise etc... Then you can drop back to treat&praise/just praise/just praise/just praise/treat&praise/just praise/just praise/just praise/treat&praise etc...
Then you can drop it back to just a treat every 4th time etc, then randomise the treats.

If you work hard on it, you should have him trained to recall on a whistle within 4-6 weeks. Some dogs learn faster and will only take you 2 weeks, other dogs learn slower and it might take you 8 weeks, it all depends on how much time you dedicate to training.

All the people above who have recommended castration..... castration will only ever fix sexual problems... and not knowing a recall command is not a sexual problem, it is a training issue.

Good luck, and if you have any questions please ask.

Agree with what eira has posted above, this recall to whistle is a gundog training method and works fabulously well, if you want any more info on gundog training and methods I can give some pointers on places you can look.

Good luck!!

RedBern

wow- thanks for this. I'll give the training anothergo - I've got nothing to lose (although Floyd, bless him - has! ) I'll also try training the husband which may prove more difficult I suspect.

RedBern

To begin with when you start recall training on the whistle just have the whistle in your mouth when you are putting his breakfast & dinner down. Give 3 short "pips" on the whistle as he starts running towards you & the food bowl. Voila, you have just done stage one - rewarded him for coming when you recall him.

hey - we can do this already! spent all day calling him and giving him bits of sausage, yum. So far, so good. Will let you know............

RedBern

Hey, Hey!! Day 2 - Floyd out in back garden having a sniff around - three pips on the whistle - he came hurtling into the kitchen for his sausage!!! Husband v impressed!

Scubabe

Oooooh that is fabulous!!!
I am so glad you're having such a good experience with it!
Remember not to rush things too fast, the important thing for him is that he never, ever, EVER learns that he can ignore the recall....
If he learns he can ignore it then he will... but if you take it nice and slow at the moment then he will never even think about ignoring the recall.

Is hubby practicing with the recall and treating as well? The hardest part is making sure you both use the same recall pip sequence... my dog has a perfect recall to me on whistle, but hubby never bothers taking the whistle on a walk, I asked hubby to come on a training session with me the other day and found out why hubby thinks it doesn't work... he gives 3 long pips instead of 3 short ones.... so dog doesn't recognise it and ignores it!! Silly hubby!

So glad it's working well!!

In a month or so maybe we can work on an emergency stop whistle (useful for when there's a danger or a bike or something and you want Floyd to stop in his tracks immediately)

Ness

RedBern

still going well ... am off to pet shop to get something different for his treats for the weekend. Trying not to get giddy and go too fast..... but having such fun just in the house and garden with him.

Scubabe

G'day Bern if you're still reading just wondering how things are going now???

Ness

RedBern

Hi Ness, we're still trying to train him..... and losing the battle I think! Invested in an 8m lead and he'll come straight back to me when I call him when he's on that... he'll come to a whistle in the garden or a call in the garden... but as soon as we take him on his walk and take his lead off, he heads for the same place and stands barking at the gate at two labrador !!!!!es! Unfortunately it is a habit we're having difficulty breaking at the moment..... however we're not beaten yet....

supermezzo

I think then that he's now in a 'learned' behaviour pattern re the bi**hes and you need to break that habit as recall is obviously no longer an issue - He just hasn't twigged that it applies to that particular part of his walk. Or worse, has simply learned to ignore it.
Is his general leadwork ok? Does he follow you and behave etc? If so, then you need to walk him past this gate on his lead until frankly, it becomes a bit boring! Take whichever treats you use for recall and walk him past on his lead with the treat at his nose and make sure that you keep his attention on you, not the 'other' females in his life. Alternatively, start the walk by this gate and head away from it instead of letting him run towards it - Too much of a good thing and all that..... Huge amounts of praise when he gets it right and it shouldn't take too long for a retriever to work it out!
Do you have somewhere enclosed other than your garden where you can let him off and practice recall? When ours are little we use the local park tennis courts (although we train assistance dogs so get away with being places other dogs aren't allowed so you may need to check this first) but it may be that he needs to associate coming back with a choice rather than just because he sees no option as he's on a an extender lead.

pboae

Is he still intact?

IMHO you are fighting a losing battle if there are in-season b!tches around (or even just b!tches that he knows come into season regularly). No reward or punishment you can ever think of is going to be a stronger than that particular drive.