We have a friend whose collie is whistle trained for recall and were thinking of trying this with Stan. When out walking he responds better to a whistle when something has caught his attention and we thought that if we whistle trained him to recall we might actually have some hope of letting him off lead. He is really responsive to train and is great if there are no distractions so a whistle could be ideal. Can't hurt to have a go at training him with it can it. Can you get them from any pet shop or are they more specialised?

I would get the Acme whistle - I get mine online. And get a lanyard because they are very small and easy to lose.

I got my acme whistle online, but I think you can buy them from petshops sometimes.

The important thing with recall, is only to train it when you know the dog will respond. If you ask for a recall and your dog isn't going to respond, then you are training it that it can ignore you, and for every time you allow your dog to stop and sniff before finally deciding that your really, really loud whistle call now means you'd best come right this minute, or, or, actually, there isn't a consequence - then your dog just learns to ignore the command, whether verball, signal or whistle.

If you're out and about, and you haven't got a good recall, instead of untraining your dog, go and get them. I once watched a woman with a whistle call her dog back, long loud whistle, she could see it at this point, watched the dog go over the horizon, whistling all the time, didn't move from the spot. A little later, when I took my dogs back for a free run, she had only just caught the little beggar, was covered in mud, and fuming, not really in the right state to encourage her dog to come back to her at all.

Make sure that you use a recall as something fun, don't just recall your dog and put it back on lead, recall and then reward. I use recall to bring my dog forward to something I want it to find and retrieve, or redirect it from a certain spot. Or even just put it on the stop whistle on the way back, and I turn every training exercise into a 'game' where they are set up to get things right, and enjoy themselves.

The amount of times you see or hear the phrase, my Fido has an excellent recall unless...... always makes me chuckle, my recall with my dogs is about 80%, ie they turn and come back instantly, not turn and think about it, sniff the grass, etc.

Thanks for the advice. We are at a stage now where Stanley is 25kg and seems to think everyone wants a cuddle off him(he has never been allowed to jump up!!) and leaps at them, so we can't risk letting him off until his recall is sorted. He's great if there is no one around but as soon as someone appears it's like a switch flicks and he goes into tunnel vision and bolts, sometimes he'd come back, sometimes he wouldn't. I don't think we let him off young enough and weren't firm enough in his recall training. But he does love to learn so we are trying to re train him (and us, more importantly). Unfortunately, strangers seem to be much more fun than we are to him, hubby even threw himself on the floor in mock death to entice him back one day, hilarious but not particularly effective lol lol. We are hoping that by incorparating the whistle it will help us and him, because he would love to be off lead and we know its our fault he can't so want to make amends so he can run free doing boxer zoomies!!!

I made quite a few mistakes with both my dogs, which is why I sort of know where I went wrong with some of the more common problems, and what to try and do to correct it. I still find myself recalling more than once, saying sit more than once etc, it is more a case of learning as a handler how to be clear and consistent, and to show the dog what's expected of it. Easier said than done, when you've got a large dog bolting across the field to say hello to a young family with kids, all training goes out of the window, and you have to pelt it after your dog to try and avert disaster!!

Everyone has those moments when you wish the ground would open up and swallow you because your dog's done something, I've had a few!!!

I find whistles alot easier on the throat and they get a far better response than the voice. I'm guilty of nattering away to my dogs and they tend to tune me out I think so that when I do issue a verbal command, they arent as receptive. The whistle however is only sounded when I instruct them to do something so it gets their attention instantly. I have an Acme 210.5.

Flynn has his own set of whistle commands due to him being a trained gundog so I just use a simple wolf whistle to call the collies back (but they do respond to Flynn's recall whistle too but Flynn doesnt respond to theirs).

I have forgotten my whistle on the odd occassion and felt more or less completely powerless. Even though the dogs know verbal commands and hand signals, the whistle is an absolute godsend and I would never go back to voice alone. One of my collies turns a deaf ear to almost everything I say (he's not interested in pleasing humans) but as soon as I pip the whistle he comes running. I get ignored when I just shout him.

Training steadiness is extremely difficult and i've gotten it with my HPR but not the collies (but then again, i've trained Flynn for it and not put in the time with the collies).
Me and the dogs were out last night hunting for bunnies (not to kill I hasten to add) and several shot across the path ahead of Flynn. He saw them but never faltered. Training a couple of weeks ago and he pointed a hare/rabbit and when it ran off he went to chase but I blew an immediate stop whistle and to my surprise he complied and didnt budge til I released him. This is from a dog who in the past has coursed so it is possible to stop chase behaviour but it's very hard work. I'm also lucky in that if he is chasing something I blow the recall whistle and he arcs back to me straight away.

Like I said, the collies however are a different matter...

Me too - which is why I`ve developed a very loud whistle myself which I do in the 3-toot pattern, and Shamus has (luckily) cottoned on to that one too.