THAT made me laugh!! t'is true though, although we argue a lot about dogs and horses, I respect his scientific way of looking at things, rather than from my more emotional angle.

Nice post, Brierly, thank you that. I suppose because hubby does the bulk of the walking as I work very long hours far away from where we live, I do allow him to have the brunt of the walking. I do as much as I can at weekends, but then I have all the housework to do - a woman's work, and all that

Once I start returning home in daylight, instead of the dark, then perhaps I will be able to take Ben out just on our own and spend some time training him. I need to do a similar thing with Tai, because he is slipping back into his old ways of running at the fence where the chickens are kept to frighten them. But at present, it is dark when I get home at night.

I take your point also about reliance on a tool - I dislike that intensely, I dislike having to rely on anything except for my voice and my whistle, which of course are always present unless I have laryngitis!! I will probably take Ben out without wearing the e collar, or if he is wearing it,only using the pager button if I absolutely have to. Another of Hal's sons from a previous litter lives with a farmer friend of our's, and he was trained not to jump up and take pheasants out of the air on shoots, and now his owner never takes the control unit with him, the dog just wears the collar. In fact by now, even that may have been dispensed with because when I saw him in the back of the car at the pub the other day he certainly was not wearing it.

thanx for your very thoughtful posting Brierly, it is appreciated

I know at least some of you guys are trying to help us to help Ben, I know and appreciate it, your words are not falling on deaf ears believe me.

I can tell you exactly what is in his make-up - Alaskan Malamute, Siberian Husky and wolf. No probable about it, there is sibe in him.

I would be more than happy to meet up - we live in Northants between Daventry and Northampton.

What exactly will it take to make you stop the collar? You're happy to have Ben yelp from pain so where do you draw the line?

Well bully for you. sorry, but I just cannot do that, I am totally knackered the whole time as it is. Not all of us are as fit as others

more like collie

u didnt answer my question G.. why do u think a csv would be hard to train for recall?

btw..i had a collie bitch that was a shocker to train recall....even got in the car n drove away once...she didnt batter an eyelid..yes collies are clever,too clever for their own good..biddable..im not so sure about that.

Why not start now? I know it's difficult to get out and about with him, but why not start the basics at home - perhaps when the adverts are on TV, when you are boiling a kettle to make a drink etc

Getting the basics within the home in 'small bites' is the foundation of all training. A sit, a stay, a whistle to signal meal times, cuddle times etc and even when he's just coming over to you, ie headed in your direction so that the basis of the recall is started in a relaxing environment.

When you hang out the washing at weekends, take rubbish to the bin etc, incorporate a bit of fun training - getting Ben to run after you then turning to face him and giving your recall cue (whistle or voice - whatever you use). You are setting him up to succeed and it will make that venture into the bigger world for training go so much easier.

If Ben started to show some worrying signs of it all going belly up. He does not continuously yelp - why should he need to? He has only EVER had two zaps, and yes, it is true, he yelped - twice. Since that day, he has never had to be zapped again, but the vibration pager has been used on him this last weekend. That of course does not cause any alarm or discomfort whatsoever, it is just a reminder to him, to listen.

I do!! I don't have a problem with his sitting, staying, lying down, trusting for food, every time I groom them, which is every day virtually, particularly for Ben this is a training session because he does not like being brushed particularly, and used to turn on your hand in the past. He has to sit and wait calmly for his food, so does Tai, so does Gucci. I am not talking about these kinds of everyday routine training, this is not where we have had a problem. It has only been with his recall. of course we have tried running away, hiding, all the games you can think off. Running away and getting him to chase was how we got Hal to have a half decent recall when it suited him!

what you have to understand is that these "northern breed" type dogs rarely have much of a desire to please, like a normal labrador, collie or spaniel. They are recalcitrant and self-pleasing, and it is often very difficult to find a reason WHY they should want to come to you. It is easy if you have a dog who likes titbits, or toys, or just pure simple praise like Tai - but if you have a dog like Hal, or Ben, it is far far far harder. With Hal, we could have waived a pair of smelly socks or knickers and he would have come like a shot. Or wafted the scent of bitch in heat around!! the only thing that tripped that dog's trigger was SEX!! He was not in the remotestly interested in food. Ben is a little keener on food, so it has been easier with him because we reinforce his training with titbits. If we had had Ben from 8 weeks like we did Hal, we would not be having this problem now. I would say he is 50% easier to train than Hal was - we managed to achieve a passing standard of recall with Hal only because we had had him virtually from birth.

I wish I had a video camera - but I am more than happy to meet up with anyone who lives in the Northants area!