I really appreciate everyone's responses, you've all been incredibly helpful

It's trial and error, I guess. Dexter's favourite thing in the world is other dogs and also meeting new people, he's such a social butterfly, my dog

I will try all the things suggested and one of them will click, just a case of me getting it right...

Maybe what you need is a second dog to lure him back

Ah, now how did you know what I was thinking...?


Mind you, knowing Dexter, he'd persuade the other dog to start ignoring recall too LOL LOL

Tabitha, don't despair. I had my rescue pointer on a long line for 18 months before I could trust her recall. I remember being really depressed a year after we'd got her, and resigned myself to never letting her off. Five years down the line she is the best recaller I have ever known. I am not an expert, and am reluctant to give you advice, but I can tell you what worked for Saba.

Saba had absolutely no interest in food, even in the house...in fact she was stressed by it. (I suspect that her previous owner had tried that firing a gun over the dogs at mealtime trick). So using food as a reward was a non-starter. Toys worked sometimes in the garden, but not out in the fields. Really smelly things were better (Aveda hand cream!!). But nothing could compete with running to the furthest hedge to point at birds.

I think I underestimated the amount of time that it took Saba to feel secure with us, because she was so affectionate. It will obviously vary from dog to dog, but looking back, I think she was still shaky after a year. So be patient....you'll never know for sure what demons from the past your chap is fighting.

We got another dog after we'd had Saba for a year, and everything started falling into place. She had a release for all the pent-up dog play and communication. She had competition for our affection. Food suddenly became important, because even though she didn't care for it, she wasn't going to let the new boy have it. We were also lucky that the new dog was extremely food motivated, and would drop anything for a crumb of food. So he was pretty quick to get a good recall, which made Saba do the same.

As I got more confident I would let go of the end of Saba's rope in quieter parts of our walk and recall. I built it up over the months until I was sure she had got it before letting her off for most of the walk. I still put her back on the lead if I am talking to someone else, so that she will never learn to go off on her own....she has to be with me, even though she's no longer physically attached.

Be patient, keep at it, and if you have room in your life for another dog it might work for you too.

Tala had exactly the same issues as Dexter. Other dogs were a magnet to her and she did not want to come away.

Having a second dog seems to have tipped the recall scales in my favour.

But I spent 8 months walking them separately to make sure Maisie had a good recall away from Tala's influence. Plus the three years I have spent working on Tala's recall with long lines, flexis, food, whistles (you name it, we have tried it).

I read about saving the food ration for recall in John Rogerson's book. So thinking anything is worth a try I have taken her food ration onto the field. She has ignored treats in the past but she will now come back for her kibble! And amazingly it clicked the very first day. So she never went hungry although she had slightly less on occasion as I simply witheld a handful of kibble if she did not come straight away.

I just think everything has come together in my favour. A second dog to play with and compete with for food (she didn't compete with other dogs). Increased appetite due to reduced rations for her weight after speying. Lots of little exercises using food while out. Working on our relationship. And using a whistle for recall. It carries further and my verbal recall command probably meant very little after years of ignoring it.

She is not perfect and has her moments still. But compared to how her recall used to be she is a little star

It may take time but there is hope!

I often use part of Cain's meals out on walks, partly because he loves raw, and partly to stop him gaining weight. What are the implications for bloat risks if a dog is eating all of it's meals outside during recall training? Normally you'd leave an hour or more between exercise and meals and feeding whole meals on walks concerns me...

I covered this in my original article, if you feed twice a day you do not take your dog out ONLY TWICE A DAY for recall training.

You should be taking the dog out several times a day so that its DAILY RATION is divided up into say 30 bags and thus you recall, give part of ration and go hom.

So, you have 30 bags you can have 6 sessions a day with five bags of food at a time, or 10 sessions a day with 3 bags.

Simple!

Why can’t I get a reliable recall?

‘Come’ is no harder to train than any other behaviour but in real life it has a huge number of criteria that have to be raised one at a time in order to guarantee success.
Often when puppies are brought home to their new owners this is the first time they have ever been separated from their dam and siblings and so they naturally attach themselves to their new family by following them about everywhere. Owners find this quite attractive and wrongly assume that this trait will continue into adolescence/adulthood, whatever the circumstances. A dangerous trap to fall into…

At some point in time, usually from around 6 – 10 months, depending on the individual, “Velcro” dog will morph into “Bog off” dog (this is especially true of a breed that has been developed to exhibit a high degree of initiative). This is the time when owners suddenly realize that their dog will not recall when it sees another dog/person etc. Not only is this inconvenient but potentially dangerous as the dog could be at risk of injury from a car/train/another dog etc.

How and when do I start with a puppy?

My advice is to prepare for this inevitability from the day you take your puppy home. If you are lucky the breeder will have started this process whilst still in the nest by conditioning the puppies to a whistle blown immediately before putting the food bowl down during weaning.
Dogs learn by cause and effect ie sound of whistle = food. If you, the new owner, continue this from the moment your puppy arrives you will lay down strong foundations for the future.

By using the whistle in association with meals/food you need to establish the following criteria:
• Come from across the room.
• Come from out of sight
• Come no matter who calls
• Come even if you are busy doing something else
• Come even if you are asleep.
• Come even if you are playing with something/someone else
• Come even if you are eating

Once this goal has been realized in the house, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the garden.

Once this goal has been realized in the garden, drop all the criteria to zero and establish the same measures, one at a time, in the park/field etc.

To train this, or any other behaviour:

1. Make it easy for the dog to get it right
2. Provide sufficient reward

Do not expect a dog to come away from distractions in the park until you have trained it to come to you in the park when no diversions are around. Be realistic and manage your expectations; your sphere of influence/control over your dog may be only 20m to begin with, therefore do not hazard a guess that the dog, at this level of training, will successfully recall from 50m or more away. Distance, like every other criterion, must be built up over time.

Some simple rules to follow when training the recall:

• Whistle/signal/call only once (why train the dog to deliberately ignore your first command?)
• Do not reinforce slow responses for the dog coming eventually after it has cocked its leg, sniffed the tree etc (you get what you train!)
• If you know that the dog will not come back to you in a certain situation, go and get him rather than risk teaching him that he can ignore you. (If you have followed the programme correctly you will never put your dog in a position to fail).
• Practise recalling the dog, putting him on the lead for a few seconds, reinforce with food/toy etc and immediately release the dog. Do this several times during a walk etc so that the dog does not associate a recall with going on the lead and ending the walk or being put on the lead with the cessation of fun.
• Eventually, when the behaviour is very strong, alternate rewards ie verbal praise, physical praise, food, toy and also vary the “value” of the rewards, sometimes a plain piece of biscuit, sometimes a piece of cooked liver etc so that you become a walking slot machine (and we all know how addictive gambling can be)!

In my experience recall training should be consistent and relentless for the first two years of a dog’s life before it can be considered truly dependable. You should look on it as a series of incremental steps, rather than a single simple behaviour, and something that will require lifelong maintenance.

What about an older or rescue dog?

Follow the same programme as outlined above however for recalcitrant dogs that have received little or no training, I would recommend dispensing with the food bowl and feeding a dog only during recalls to establish a strong behaviour quickly.

Your training should be over several sessions a day, which means you can avoid the risk of bloat. It is essential that the dog learns that there will be consequences for failure as well as success.

Divide the day’s food ration up into small bags (between10 – 30), if the dog recalls first time, it gets food, if it does not, you can make a big show of saying “too bad” and disposing of that portion of food (either throw it away or put aside for the next day).

Again, raise the criteria slowly as outlined in puppy training.

Hunger is very motivating!

For those of you who believe it unfair/unhealthy to deprive a dog of its full daily ration, not having a reliable recall is potentially life threatening for the dog ……………

How do I stop my dog chasing joggers/cyclists/skateboarders/rabbits/deer?

Chasing something that is moving is a management issue. Do not put your dog in a position where it can make a mistake. Again you need to start training from a pup but if you have already allowed your dog to learn and practise this behaviour you may need to rely on a trailing line until your dog is desensitised to these distractions and knows that listening to you results in a great reinforcement. Chasing is a behaviour much better never learned as it is naturally reinforcing to the dog, which makes it hard for you to offer a better reinforcement. If you want to have a bombproof recall while your dog is running away from you then use the following approach:

Your goal is to train so that your dog is totally used to running away from you at top speed, and then turning on a sixpence to run toward you when you give the recall cue.

You need to set up the training situation so that you have total control over the triggers. For this you will need to gain the co-operation of a helper. If you have a toy crazy dog you can practice this exercise by throwing a toy away from the dog towards someone standing 30 or 40 feet away. At the instant the toy is thrown, recall your dog! If the dog turns toward you, back up several steps quickly, creating even more distance between the you and the toy and then throw another toy in the opposite direction (same value as one thrown)..

If the dog ignores you and continues toward the thrown object, your “helper” simply picks the ball up and ignores dog. When dog eventually returns (which it will because it’s getting no reinforcement from anyone or anything), praise only. Pretty soon the dog will start to respond to a recall off a thrown toy. You will need to mix in occasions the toy is thrown and the dog is allowed to get it ie you do NOT recall if you want to make sure it does not lose enthusiasm for retrieving.

For the food obsessed dog, you can get your helper to wave a food bowl with something the dog loves in it and then recall the dog as soon as you let it go to run towards the food; again if the dog ignores you and continues to the food, your helper simply ensures the dog cannot access the food and start again. (It is extremely important that the helper does not use your dog’s name to call it for obvious reasons).

Gradually increase the difficulty of the recall by letting the dog get closer and closer to the toy/food. Praise the moment the dog turns away from the toy/food in the
early stages of training. Don't wait until the dog returns to you; the dog must have instant feedback.

Once the dog is fluent at switching directions in the middle of a chase, try setting up the situation so that it is more like real life. Have someone ride a bike/run/skate past. (It is unrealistic to factor in deer/rabbits however if your training is thorough the dog will eventually be conditioned to return to you whatever the temptation in most contexts).

Until your training gets to this level, don't let the dog off-lead in a situation in which you don't have control over the chase triggers. Don't set the dog up to fail, and don't allow it to rehearse the problem behaviour. Remember, every time a dog is able to practise an undesirable behaviour it will get better at it!

Most people do not play with toys correctly and therefore the dog is not interested in them or, if it gets them, fails to bring it back to the owner.

Play the two ball game, once you have a dog ball crazy. Have two balls the same, throw one to the left, when the dog gets it, call him like crazy waving the next ball; as he comes back throw the other ball to the right and keep going left right so that YOU are the centre of the game and the dog gets conditioned to return to you for the toy. Once this behaviour is established you can then introduce the cues for out and then make control part of the game ie the game is contingent on the dog sitting and then progress to a sequence of behaviours.

HTH those who have accused me of "bending dogs to my will" or "starving my dogs" or of "animal abuse".

I do NONE of the above, but as always I cannot control how people INTERPRET the written word.

I abide by the KCAI Code of Practice in my training methods, as does John Rogerson.

So I suggest that those who believe that I am guilty of animal abuse complain directly to them if you feel so strongly.

I have nothing to hide about how I train my dogs or those of others and anyone who knows my dogs knows they are the very OPPOSITE of being abused.

Unlike others on this thread I have not resorted to baseless accusations impugning their professional or personal integrity.

I HAVE however remarked on the inability to interpret the written word correctly.

However, on reflection, as a qualified trainer I am willing to give those people making the baseless accusations the benefit of the doubt and accept that their learning styles are best suited to visual, aural or kinaesthetic modes rather than text.

A couple of tips that have worked for me.

Persistence! Be more stubborn that the dog!
Train for 10 minutes a day, a couple of times a day. Little and often seems to work better than long sessions.

Go out with a friend with multiple dogs. This encourages your dog to remain with you as he has enough company where he is.

Reward when he goes past you. This was the breakthrough point for one of mine. He learned that returning didn`t mean the end of the walk.

And expect it to take time. It takes twice as long to retrain than to train. (IME)

I am not sure of your circumstances and have only been able to read some of this thread, but if it were me I'd probably be using the thing he loves most in the world as a reward.

So I'd perhaps have him on a longish lead, wait until a dog was near but Dexter showed signs of obeying something - a Sit, tiny basic recall, or whatver - and then (if safe and acceptable, you will decide this before starting) say "Yes!" or click, and allow him to meet the other dog.

Often you have to use the thing a dog loves best, to train. It can work really well. Not always, it depends on "stuff", but you never know till you try.

You will need good timing to use this method. Also need to be doing a lot of other obedience work so he listens to you in general

In time you can ask for 2 recalls, plus use other rewards, adding in the special reward every now and then still, so he still gets his main reward.

Not sure what else has been recommended, but give this one a try if things have not improved .

Wys
x

Firstly a massive thank you again to those of you who were so helpful in the original thread I posted re my recall problems with Dexter.

You will probably remember that SMOKEY BEAR kindly offered me some advice and suggested ensuring Dex was good and hungry before heading to the park and attempting some recall.

So last night I fed him very early and then this morning, Dexter was distinctly unimpressed to get no brekkie....

At the park I let him off leash -
there were also other dogs fairly nearby and people appearing from time to time a distance away.

Result - A BIG IMPROVEMENT

Dex came 8 out of 10 times that I recalled him - I was even able to recall him AWAY from hurtling over to someone who entered the field we were in!

I also managed to recall him away from the other dogs!

He still ignored me on two occasions so of course we have a lot of work to do to get things 100%. But I definitely noticed a difference and am rather relieved....!

I think it's also helped that over the past week I've taken him to the park and kept him on a Flexi leash and done lots and lots of recalls while he's on that.

Just wanted to let you know and say again thank you to all of you - SMOKEY BEAR if it sounds like I'm getting anything wrong still please do tell me!

Thanks