Hi, this is my first post. I have a 17 week old boxer pup. At what age should I let her off the lead in the park. She is fine in the garden and will come to you if you call her. My instinct is let her have a short run at this age, but would like some advise. I think I am scared she might not come back.

Hi, Welcome to the Forum! :)

Many people have the theory that if the pup stays on the lead for a long time, it becomes more likely to be difficult to recall when it does get let loose. Which seems perfectly logical to me. So if you can find a nice secure place then I think I'd try to be brave and let her off now, while she still thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread and wants to stay with you. Call her to you several times, maybe by calling her name to get her attention then running away from her, which should panic her into rushing after you! Then praise and reward, then say "okay" or some similar 'release' word, and send her off to play again. Then she won't associate coming to you with the end of fun.

Good luck, let us know how it goes. :)

I let Star my pup off the lead today. The park near us has an old pony trekking path which is fenced in so we started there, then ventured out into park when I was sure she would come back when shouted. She was fine and came back when called. The only thing was she was not happy being brought back home.

As Jeangenie said - also try taking a new/favourite toy with you. Only use it when you call her to you and then play with her. Keep it specially for this :)

Good luck

Daisy

we let our pup off lead at 15weeks and called him to us and gave a treat now he comes back every time plus the fact he is scared of us going out of sight plenty of praise when he returns to you and a treat is good good luck:)

I got my lurcher puplet at 6 weeks old. By the time he was 11 weeks he was running free in both garden and over the fields.
Now that he is 6 months or so, he is getting a little deaf, (but its snippity snip time for him soon hahahah) but he does have a fairly reliable recall on the fields, not quite so good in the garden, cos he knows when i call him its time to go in!

Pick a recall word, and make 100% certain that your pup associates that word with a treat, (NOT with being put on the lead and carted off home, or with anything else nasty) if you use the absolute best treats in the world, either a toy or food (try dried liver, cheese, tiny bits of sausage) and dont give that toy or treat for anything other than coming back, you shouild be onto a winner.

Em

Carle
our pup is very good at recall when no-one interesting is around but should another dog or person appear then lo and behold he turns deaf very quickly and that is something i would advise you to watch for .
:)
Lel

Thats what I am worried about if she sees another interesting dog. At the moment she is wary of strange dogs as a few smaller dogs barked and growled at her when I started taking her out at 12 weeks, so at the moment she moves very slowly to see if they will be friendly.

We have just the opposite where pup has yet to meet a dog that growls or does not want to be bothered by him - so he thinks all others are as happy go lucky as him .
He will bound over to them ( if we havent managed to put him back on the lead )and "bounce" around them , wagging his tail . Doesnt matter how hard we shout or wherther we have treats or his favoiurite stick with us , he will not respond .
You could try using an extending lead which is what we are trying at the moment to get him used to recall that way .
Another piece of advice is not to "mummy" pup when other dogs are around or to tense up as he will sense it
Lel

When we were at the park today we met a lady with a black lab who was nice to her so hopefully she will get a bit more confidence with other dogs. I think she frightens some dogs because she is quite big and bounces about a lot, which is part of being a puppy I guess.

Every time you call him back dont just go home or keep him on the lead or he will think that when you call him hes going on lead or end of walk call him give a treat then let him go as with the lead call him make sure you touch his collar before you treat put lead on then walk a bit and let him off again then he will think he is not nessecarily going home

We started with Minx as soon as she was allowed out - while they are so young, they still think you are the bees knees and don't want you to leave them, so they are mostly happy to come back. We figured if we could have a relialbe recall before Minx hit the terrible teens, it'd be easier than waiting to teach her to come back while she's discovering that other things are more interesting. She's not quite six months now, and is very solid when we're out, although you can tell that she's sometimes starting to consider whether she's in the middle of doing something more interesting than coming back to us. If you call her back loads of times and then let her go again, she won't learn to associate being called back with going home.

I let Sydney off the lead for the first time Tuesday morning. (Nobody in the park so luckly had no distractions) We walked around together if he got to far say more than 10 feet I would call him to me and reward him with a treat each time. As he is only little just gone 11 weeks he doesnt stray to far. Have let him off each morning and evening now and have no problems with him coming back to me. If he has ignored me I started running away calling his name really loudly, he came like a bat out of hell. (Dont foget a large pocketfull of treats as you need to be constantly rewarding him with treat and praise lots of praise for his recalls)

Remember to touch his collar each time as you give him his reward. In no time he will be walking off the lead with you. I always put Sydney on the lead when I saw another dog as you just dont know how they will react to a small pup, and its the last thing we want having our pups scared by being bowled over by a big freindly dog, or at the worst a big mean dog. I then walk up to the owner and ask is he/she friewndly and have allowed Sydney to have a sniff. Fortunately the other dog owners have put their dog on the lead when they saw how small Sydney was.

Good luck and be brave like I was and Im sure that you will have no problems.

We have been to the park a couple of times and she has been fine, but would play all day. I have been limiting the trips to about 15 minutes. In my case Star is the big puppy and I think frightens smaller dogs so I keep her close until we know if approaching dogs are ok with us. Yesterday she slept for 3 hours after her run which now is unheard of.

Hi.

I have three dogs, one is a 19 week old pup. When she was ready to go out i let her off the lead straightway......
I always work on the fact that a dog is a pack animal and would be unusual for a puppy to leave the pack.
I always find that should the pup run off in front and appear not to be listening to you calling, is stand still and don't move towards the pup.... Usually the pup returns because they seem to wonder why the packleader has stopped moving forward.....

I have also trained my pup to come to the sound of me shaking my car keys....i did this in the house to start with and gave her a treat when she came....So when out for a walk a quick shake of the car keys gets her attention immediately.