Haha bless him!

Nah, I'm only kidding - It's because I read a book recently - it was the diary of a mongrel who was deeply offended by the term

My son walked my last but one GSD once (yes - it is that unusual) and came back a bit red-faced. I asked why and apparently he`d stood by the side of the lake, dog on lead while mums with small children fed the cute fluffy ducklings when one baby duck wandered hopefully up to my son...and the dog ate it! Swift exit followed.

I have a similar story. Out walking the dogs, I came upon an odd sight, a grandfather and his grandchild sitting on one of the benches leaning forward in an odd way, I couldn't make out what they were doing, but Pharaoh did. Before I had a chance to say "Pharaoh nooooooo....." He was off, grabbed a bunny and happily trotted over to me and put it my feet (pure instinct I swear, I never trained him to to this).... Er... Sheepish grin... Sharp exit stage left, smug and happy pharaoh with dead bunny in his mouth in tow!

His recall is great I swear.. He just sometimes catches the bunny first, depends how fast they are... If you will train them to fearlessly sit out in the open for him, it's not a very level challenge I'm afraid.

I was actually going to post this question until I saw it. Piper and I go for walks in the park a few blocks away, sometimes OH comes along and then she really has fun. The other day OH and I were getting ready to go out, she was so excited she was running circles. We told her to back away from the door and stay, but as soon as it was opened she bolted out. OH immediately ran after her and thinking it was a game she ran all the way to the park (crossing several streets on the way) with him following. He chased her around a couple of cars and when I finally caught up to them she ran to me like, "Hey this game is fun huh?" I told her to stop and the tone I used made her sit very still while I picked her up. I handed her to OH for the walk home because we didn't have a leash and HE was the one muttering about coming when called and what would've happened...

So I was wondering too whether to get on to her for running out of the door against command even though she had come back to me and stopped to allow me to pick her up when I told her to.

In that situation I would not.

Your OH turned it into a game so the running out of the door had already been reinforced.

If you then told her off for coming to you she'd just be completely confused because she's already forgotten about running out of the door due to the excitement that followed.

In that situation I would actually have praised her for such a good sit on recall (!) and then taken her home and practiced the whole stay at the door thing again.

Blue did this to me once, she ran across the field opposite my house at Felixstowe chasing a rabbit, the other side was a railway - we didn't used to go on that side off lead and blue's recall was spot on all the time, but she would not come back, I had my heart in my mouth when thank god at the last min she lost interest and came back......I couldn't shout at her as she'd come back, but I put her on her lead and didn't talk to her the whole way home - which she really wasn't used to!

She didn't do it again....

I would never tell Bryan off after a recall. Like, if he goes racing across the field to have a look at someone walking past - I don't want him to go running off like that, but he does come back and when he comes back I tell him he's a good boy.

I think there's no point telling a dog off unless you can do it the instant the dog is doing the thing you don't want it to do. If that makes sense?

Yup I dont tell them off if they come back - cos you dont want them ever to think that coming back is going to get them told off

TBH I dont really tell him off cos I can see why he does the wrong thing
as a pup he got really carsick and although he is really good off the lead a couple of times he has bolted to the park (which is outside my house) when I wanted him to get in the car
I understand that he dosent want to get in the car - and I am working on that - but for now I put him on the lead before we open the door

when he is in the park cos he really dosent want to get in the car I dont yell at him - cos he wont come back anyway I just keep walking towards him, stiff backed stairing at him - dont run its no game, when I get him I dont say anything I just put the lead on and walk him to the car (and they do let you catch them - once they realise you mean buisness)