Problems Off the Lead

Just a couple of recall ground rules...

Increase distractions SLOWLY. A big old field is a big old field to you, but to Jack it's smothered in a million new sights, sounds and smells that can be detected only by him. So move slowly. If he's mastered recall in your garden, then put him back on-leash and try it at a short distance in an area with a slightly higher distraction level.

If possible, enforce every command. In other words, try to reduce the number of times you shout "Come!" and it goes unheeded. This means one thing: Jack should NOT be off-leash until you are 95% sure he will respond to your call. Practise with long leashes or retractable leashes so you can still maintain control over him until he gets it right.

Never punish for a recall, no matter how slow; you seem to have that under your belt.

And if all else fails...

Dog-catching is not easy, but initiating a game of chase with any young, rambunctious dog is. If Jack refuses to come by, get his attention, then turn and start running in the opposite direction. He'll most likely join in the game and run towards you.

Does Jack know a "leave it" cue?

Dogs do not generlize behavior from one location to another. They just do NOT.

So, when you go to the big field, start over teaching the recall on a long line. Have lots of treats and give him a few when he comes to you on recall. Next go to another place and do this again.. and another and another. I do this with recalls, sits, stand, stay, lie down etc etc etc.

Otherwise "come here" means return to me at home, but not anywhere else. Well, I want my dog to respond to cues better in the context of 'anywhere else' than she does in the 'Living Room!' so I train in the context of 'everywhere else' until the dog understands sit means sit no matter where we are, what we are doing or what is going on. I tell ppl.. I don't care if the second coming is coming.. when I say to the dog "come her!" it means she should "Come Here!"

It has been suggested that to generalize any behavior to a cue request you have to repeat the training in 20 different places before the dog understands that cue means the same in the house, the back yard, the big field, the park, Petsmart etc etc.

I have taken my dog to the grocery store and trained her in front of that with carts and kids. To the Dollar store, and done the same. To a field. To a park. To a village street. To a city Street. To a different park. No wonder she likes to ride in the truck.. we always go somewhere and train and she gets dog treats!

IF (big IF) you feel that you are having little success with the use of positive reinforcement and motivational methods you might as some have suggested consider using corrections to some degree. I found this on YOUTUBE which may not be your cup of tea.

This Springer is in training and the handler uses a prong collar/corrections

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2ZxXXcvTY


These Springers where trained on a remote E-COLLAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9B1ciAUGeU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4py8LBtjNM&feature=related


It is difficult to find anything on you tube illustrating the training of a Springer. I wonder why?

The trick is to set the dog up to succeed every time. If the dog fails, it is because he wasn't ready for the level you are asking for.

For instance: If you call the dog and he is 5 feet away and he comes to yu all the time. that is great. If you move up to 20 feet away and his recall is iffy, then you need to reduce the distance to 8 feet and gradually work up to 20 feet.

If you have to repeat commands the repeat becomes the command. For instance: If you say "sit" and the dog stands there so next you say "sit sit" and the dog stands there but when you say "sit Sit SIT" he sits, well the last one is not the command.

Dogs are much better at learning to respond to non verbal cues such as hand signals. Dogs are not vocal coumminicators like humans are, so body postion and hand signals work better as cues than verbal commands.

Teaching a dog to do something in increments works better than lumping a behavior. If you are working on recall, break down what you want into steps. When you call a dog, how does he typically respond?
1.) He looks at you.
2.) He leans in your direction.
3.) He takes a step in your direction.
4.) he takes another step in your direction.
5.) he takes more steps until he is in front of you.
6.) he stands there.
7.) he sits in front of you.

To train a recall, make the distance from you to the dog very short (a couple of feet at first) and click and reward each of the above behaviors until they chain together as a complete recall. When it is consistant, add a cue (hand signal or verbal). When the dog responds to the cue at a hort distance (like in the house), increase the distance.

Repeat this same phase training in several "new" places until the dog generalizes the behavior to all situations and locations.

You can do all of this with the word "YES!" and an immediate reward after that word (Yes! marks the correct choice in the dog's behavior).

I have never used a prong collar.. or any type of correction/aversive to get a dog to recall. Doing so can really and truly back fire on you. The point of training is to set the dog up to do it right every time and to make if fun so he wants to do it right every time. Food is often (not ALWAYS) the best motivator with toys and games up there as good motivators as well.

As you move into more and more distracting situations you need to up the quality and frequency of the motivator.

Elana is completely right. When I say that every command should be enforced, I don't mean that you should be reeling your dog in against his will every time you call him. It means that you need to set the dog up for success by identifying his limits and not crossing them. If you know that your dog can recall from 10 feet very well, increase to 14 feet. If you find that he can't do 14 feet, shift down to 12. Still can't do 12? Shift down again and work on recall from 10 feet some more. Try not to give him more than you know he can handle. This isn't just to make training a fun and rewarding experience for him (though this is a very valid purpose for setting up for success). It's also so that you don't end up shouting commands at your dog that he ignores. This dilutes the meaning of your cues and sets you back in the training process.

There are two criteria to training recall: distance and distraction level. Distance is how far you want your dog to recall from (5 ft vs 30 ft), and distraction level is how exciting his current environment is (your living room vs dog park). Increase these only one at a time. If he can recall from 30 feet in your backyard, a relatively low-distraction environment, don't expect him to recall from 30 feet in the field. Start by asking for 2 feet in the field, and gradually increase.