# puppy running off to play with other dogs



## spoeke (Nov 25, 2011)

hello,
our almost 5mth old pointer puppy is great when we go for walks. we walk her off lead as she just seems to need the exercise to burn off all her energy. she's absolutely perfect when we walk somewhere with no distractions but as soon as she sees other dogs she just runs off. we then call her about 3 times and if she doesnt react go to get her. if she comes back when we call her she always gets lots of praise and treats (even if she ran away in the first place). 
i know shes only a puppy and all puppies love to play but i just dont want to make any fundamental mistakes at this stage. ive heard of people just leaving their dog on a long training lead but i would hate for her to not be able to just go for a good run around.

any advice please?

thank you!


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## smokeybear (Oct 19, 2011)

This might help

*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


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## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

spoeke said:


> hello,
> our almost 5mth old pointer puppy is great when we go for walks. we walk her off lead as she just seems to need the exercise to burn off all her energy. she's absolutely perfect when we walk somewhere with no distractions but as soon as she sees other dogs she just runs off. we then call her about 3 times and if she doesnt react go to get her. if she comes back when we call her she always gets lots of praise and treats (even if she ran away in the first place).
> i know shes only a puppy and all puppies love to play but i just dont want to make any fundamental mistakes at this stage. ive heard of people just leaving their dog on a long training lead but i would hate for her to not be able to just go for a good run around.
> 
> ...


Has she always been like this, or is it happened more recently? If its started happening recently then its pretty normal around 6 months ish, they start to get hormone changes and start to mature, the pup that was dependant and eager to please is changing into the equivalent of a teenager and other things start to be more interesting then you are. If she has always been like this then its likely to get even worse in the near future, so either way you need to put a stop to it now. The more they do it the harder it will be to undo the bad Behaviour.

One mistake people make is to keep calling and calling, and then go and get the dog. It can make it worse, it doesnt take them long to figure out they can ignore you, what usually happens too chasing after them becomes a game for them of catch me if you can and rewards it. The also soon figure out as well that you cant run as fast as they can so if they really dont want to be caught they can avoid and run off all the more and keep out of range.

Another mistake thats often made too is letting a dog off as soon as you get
there and only calling them back at the end to put them on lead. Again they soon learn that coming back means end of the fun and so then often go deaf and avoid and run off when you try to catch them.

The only way is to seriously up your recall training and while you are training keep them on a long line, so they cant do it and get in the habit.
You need to have them on the line, but during the walk periodically call them back and reward, but release again with go Play. Dont let them get too much into sniffing and wandering and getting focussed on something. You need to call back before this happens. By calling back and in this way it keeps them guessing as they dont know when the end of the walk is, so once they realise coming back doesnt mean going home they will more likely do it. Also by calling them back before they really start to focus on other things, its easier then letting their attention get completly lost in what they are doing
then try to get them back.

You need to also make yourself more interesting. Cheese, chicken, hotdogs, sausages are usually high favourites. Find out 2 or 3 things they really love and rotate and mix them up each time they come back. It doesnt have to always be food either, you can have a game with a ragger, throw a ball a few times, call and run in the other direction most like a chase game, you can also call and hide and treat when they find you. Keep the rewards varied and interesting but always after rewarding send away with go play until the next recall.

If you think she has got deaf and learned to ignore her name and your voice, try a whistle maybe. Start indoors with treats and the whilstle, you blow the whilstle and for each blow treatm literally whistle/treat whistle/treat walk around she should follow. After a few sessions of this, try it when shes sniffing in the garden standing by the back door, if she comes a few times, then call her from inside the house with it when she is outside. Once thats OK try it outside.

Once recall has got reliable on the long line outside, the idea then is to drop the long line and use it as a drag line, this way if she starts to miss recalls, you have the line still to guide her back on track, or if need be go back to holding it again for a few sessions. Once she is reliable on the drag line though. Next step is to have her off lead in a more confined area with lesser distractions, then as she gets better more and more dstractions to test her as you go.. When she passes that test for a few sessions then more open and distractive areas and maybe more people and dogs.


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## Colette (Jan 2, 2010)

I don't have much to add - the others have covered everything, just wanted to give my thoughts...

The first thing I noticed was you said you call up to three times before going to get the pup. I would stop that now - you're only teaching her to ignore the recal cue. Give it once only; and preferably don't give it unless you are fairly sure she will respond. (If you call her knowing she will ignore it you are only setting her up to fail, and making the cue meaningless).



> ive heard of people just leaving their dog on a long training lead but i would hate for her to not be able to just go for a good run around.


I wouldn't say a training lead as such, but a long line doesn't need to be used like this and certainly doesn't stop the dog having a run around.

When Solo hit adolescence his downfall was other dogs too.... that's when we started using the long line. 
(Attach a long line to a harness tho - never a neck collar!)

In areas we wanted him off lead we put Solo on the long line (about 30 foot long and very lightweight) and just let it trail. This way he could run around as much as he liked.

When we saw another dog (we were careful to pay attention so we could spot them before he did) we picked up the line and just took up the slack. This was so he could still amble around freely, but couldn't bolt to the end of the line and hit the end abruptly.

He spotted the other dog.... being already at the end of the line (us having taken up the slack) he couldn't get to it, and just watched it or pulled towards it a bit.

We waited, said nothing.

When he stopped watching the other dog and turned to look back at us we gave the recal cue. If he came, we rewarded heavily with praise and a high value treat (we used clicker training so clicked as well). We then allowed him to approach the other dog. (IF it was a dog we knew was safe). This way he learnt that coming when called actually resulted in being allowed to go play! In this situation it was the single biggest reinforcer available. If he didn't come when called, he wasn't released to go play.

If he didn't recal we simply waited, and reeled him in if necessary.

When playing with another dog, if possible we waited for him to turn and look to us before giving the recal cue (to increase the chance of him obeying). If he came when called, he was rewarded then allowed to play again. If not, we could pick up the line and reel him in.

It didn;t take long before he realised how this worked.... when he saw another dog he would stop and look at us, expecting to be recalled, rather than just legging it towards them.


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