How was your dogs recall when you first let them off their leads in a park compared to their recall at home?

We have a park where we walk and there’s always dogs of all ages happily running around and playing with each other. Dotties recall is perfect at home but when there’s distractions involved she develops selective hearing and just runs from dog to dog wanting to play. Is this normal and if so, is it something she’ll grow out of?

She’s 7 months old BTW.

Sounds like you need to practice your recall.. Take some treats to the park, when she does come, give her lots of praise and a treat… After a while she should start getting better, slowly wean her off the treats, and keep up with the praise.

Will she grow out of it… Nope, train the dog. 😉

By the sounds of it, you’re not taking dog training? If not, sign yourself up, well worth it. Having a dog that does what its told at anytime, when you’ve got dog owners running around after their dogs gives you a rather smug feeling.

sounds like you need an intermediate area, with some open land and minor distractions, but less than the park with all the doggy friends.

By the sounds of it, you’re not taking dog training?

We are though. She’s been through puppy obedience and starts her good citizen bronze next week.

We are doing what you suggest and also use high reward treats, but I know BT’s can be stubborn and only hear what they want to hear.

What he (Milikie) said^^^ And to paraphrase Dog Borstal – you’ve got to be the most interesting thing in the park, whether it’s because you have a plastic bag full of chopped ham or a squeaky toy in your pocket.

After that, it’s all about perseverance. Every single walk. Our rescue lurcher now has better recall than pretty much any of the dogs in the local country park, purely down to months of (admittedly slightly boring) repetition. And lurchers have the reputation of being one of the hardest breeds to teach recall to….

Use bits of cheese. Perfect for learning recall (I found)

To the get it trained people did you miss this bit?

She’s 7 months old BTW.

She’s still a puppy, and to be brutally honest with you she is going to get a lot worse before she gets better as at 10 months they hit the teenager point, and then start to mature at 18 months. At 7 months she will still be clingy, and eager to please …..

Key to getting them back is to be more exciting that other dogs. Which to a puppy is kinda hard, the more exposure she has to other dogs will temper the excitement, but won’t kill it.

Have you tried calling so she looks back (even briefly) then run away from her? As that usually works.

Other good trick is to take her somewhere safe and not too busy, let her run off ‘hunting’ looking for stuff and then hide. This will teach her to keep an eye on you, as when she loses you she will get worried. This helps with the running in the opposite direction trick.

Liver cake helps as well, and means that I can now usually get mine to recall midway through retrieving a thrown ball.

My dog (lab/staff x) is superbly obedient, with great recall at all times except when there are other fun-looking dogs around. She’ll see another dog and run straight at them, no matter how much you try and call her back. She’s from a rescue, so was already “trained.” This is the one bad habit we’ve not been able to train her out of though.

She does it much less if she has a ball with her, especially if you’re playing ball with her. Might be worth a try. I know it’s not ideal, but the fact that she is seeing other dogs and choosing to ignore them (for the ball) helps her to be a bit less prone to leg it at other times.

Maybe you could keep yours on a lead in the park for a while, to sort of desensitise her to all the excitement? This has also helped a bit with mine.

Edit: beaten to most of my points whilst writing ^^^

Didn’t miss it richc – our lurcher’s recall training started almost exactly at that age. We got him at six months old – never too young to start.

Grizla, if you lab/staff X is food motivated have you tried liver cakes? Its like crack cocaine for dogs, and they will ignore *anything* once they have taste for it and you have a piece in your hand.

Its grim to make though.

Didn’t miss it richc – our lurcher’s recall training started almost exactly at that age. We got him at six months old – never too young to start.

You can train them at that age, however as they are still puppies it all tends to go to pot as soon as another dog appears or the zoomies start, it is useful for when they calm down though 🙂

Got mine at 10 months as he was a *difficult* dog, in a quiet place he could do pretty much everything (walk to heel, recall, sit, lie down, lie down with head on the floor, crawl, roll over, play dead when you say *bang*, round, leave for indefinite periods of time with food on his paws (25 minutes is the record), stay etc) However put him in a park with lots of fun dogs, and he became deaf.

Both my Borders are OK at coming back on recall (although they don’t move as fast as they used too). A friend of mine who was heavily into dog obedience training used to call terriers “the anti-christs of dog training”. Lets face it if you want complete obedience get a collie or something similar.

It did take me a while – but both of my dogs learned to retreive balls (usually golf balls- you can throw them further). This was there favourite part of going to the park.

Oh and to the OP, well done for even addressing the need for training. I recently started up a sister business for my wedding and portrait stuff (blatant plug coming up)

dog photography north east

…and am constantly astounded by the number of dogs who won’t even ‘Sit’, let alone come back when they’re called. Lots of owners say they’ll have to have an indoor shoot as their dog will “just run off” if let off the lead outside. And even the indoor shoots are a nightmare because the lead needs to be on – the dog’s never been taught to stay…. It’s been eye opening 🙂

richc I’ve not tried liver cakes, but I’ve tried other foods and am yet to find something she prefers over her tennis ball, let alone another dog! I’m curious to see what dog crack does to her though. Can you buy them rather than make them?

Key to getting them back is to be more exciting that other dogs. Which to a puppy is kinda hard, the more exposure she has to other dogs will temper the excitement, but won’t kill it.

We let her off in a very safe environment where it it mostly dog walkers and feel that she now needs to be off the lead to get used to other dogs. Me and SO also zig zag our way around the park practising recall and jumping around like a loon!

Have you tried calling so she looks back (even briefly) then run away from her?

That’s the most affective way so far.

She does it much less if she has a ball with her, especially if you’re playing ball with her.

We’re trying to get her more interested in fetch games but dog chasing is more fun at the moment.

Liver cake helps as well

Haven’t tried those. Her favourite is Frankfurters and cheese but a change could well help.

I don’t think so, you can get freeze dried liver but it doesn’t work as well.

Here’s the recipe:

1 lb pigs liver
1 lb plain flour
3 eggs
1 cloves garlic (optional may not agree with all dogs)

Use an electric blender to mix together the liver, eggs and garlic. Then gradually add the flour, you may need to use a small amount of water at this stage and should end up with a very think paste.

Spread about an inch thick in a greased baking dish.

Bake on a moderate heat for 40 minutes.

Set out to cool.

Once cool cut into inch size pieces.

Just to pre warn you, its looks and smells vile as its liquidised flesh. Also the mixture is very thick and can kill your blender, if you put too much in

Tuna bread is also as desirable as liver cake (in this house, smoked mackerel bread is the best treat possible) and is a lot less disgusting to make!

She is still a puppy and whilst it’s never to early to start you need to be prepared for all training, even things she is currently perfect at, to go out of the window when she reaches her teenage phase. Suddenly it will seem like they have decided not to do anything you tell them, a bit like normal toddlers discovering the word no 🙄 The good news is that if you perservere they will calm down and start behaving again.

The advice given above about you being more interesting and starting somewhere slightly less exciting is good, stick with it and she’ll get it in the end. Also if you know that she won’t listen and yet you try to recall anyway you are setting a new rule that it’s ok to ignore the recall command. Try hard to only use it when you know she’ll listen so that her recall is still nearly 100%. By slowly increasing the difficulty of when you recall hopefully she will still associate the command with coming back rather than having the option to ignore it as she currently does.

Good luck

I have a collie and a springer and completely understand where you’re coming from!

richc sounds lovely, thanks.

Will give it a whirl.
Part of me hopes she doesn’t like it though, if it’s that horrible to make!

“terriers are the anti-christs of dog training”

hahaha

We have a BT. Gylly turns one next week and we still have the same problem, although possibly he is getting a bit better..

Our dog training lady recommended A squeaky toy. We were told to never let him have this all the time, just a little play when he comes back

Keep trying to desenitise to other dogs / exciting things.

Running off in the other direction and saying “this way”has worked much better than come here… ie we said “this way” and ran away and now over time “this way” can almost be said without running away as he thinks we are going…

However we still have a long way to go. I think this is the hardest thing to master with a Border Terrier.

However Gylly is asleep under my desk right now and you would not think he could be such a nuisance!

Only other thing I should mention, is it is very rich, so if your dog’s stomach is sensitive don’t give it too much in one day.

The ‘this way’ trick is good as well, and I use that, avoid calling your dogs name to call them back as they soon tune that out.

Our last springer was OK, he’d come back 90% of the time and the other 10% he wasn’t doing any harm (we live on a farm so he knew squirels and phesants were fair game, but ducks, chickens and sheep were off limits).

The new one (rescue, ex-prison dog) barely aknowlages you! We’ve tried whistles, clikcers, shouting, nothing works. The only evidence of his former life is he’ll only poo in the yard and won’t eat anything thats not in his bowl (so he won’t come back for treats either).

The new one (rescue, ex-prison dog) barely aknowlages you! We’ve tried whistles, clikcers, shouting, nothing works. The only evidence of his former life is he’ll only poo in the yard and won’t eat anything thats not in his bowl (so he won’t come back for treats either).

That sounds like a bugger, good luck finding what motivates him, Stupid question, you tried the squeeky balls, or rope toys? or you could try wearing him down the the NILIF (nothing in life is free) method of training, but it takes a lot of time, and you have to be 100% consistent.

Other than that, what about a call to dog borstal 🙂

Pippa (3 year old Border) had fantastic recall outside and in unless there were other dogs around then she would go and boss them, not taking any notice of a recall. The only thing that would get her attention was to ignore her and walk away, she would then come running up in a hurry!
I think selective hearing is a Border trait, she is now refuses any recall in the house unless she thinks there is something in it for her, so we now call the cats name first, then hers and she responds immeadiately. Outside she is ok ish, unless she has found a scent of something, or there is fox and badger poo to roll in.
She is taken out 3 times a week with a dog walker who has a big group of mixed dogs, this is to make sure she is well socialised. Her behaviour then is impeccable, with instant recall. but she does boss other dogs about.. She IS the boss.

Our Patterdale lives up to the scatty, chase-anything reputation & went through a very disobediant ‘teenage’ phase. She’s 19 months now & much, much better however, will still turn a deaf ear if there are other dogs around – so much so that the wife won’t let her off the lead.

Like many terriers, she loves to ‘kill’ squeaky toys so I tend to keep the squeak from one of her victims in my pocket as this never fails to get her attention if the usual calls/commands are being ignored.

Unfortunately, whilst we were at 24/12 we left her with my bro-in-law and she was attacked by another dog whilst out walking – just a few bruises and a couple of puncture wounds but she’s, understandably, a bit skittish at the minute. Hopefully she’ll calm down again soon, especially as she’s getting a lot of walks at the minute whilst I look for the a***hole whose dog did the damage.