can any one help my staff wont listen to me when she is off the lead if we are playing ball in a field and she see another person walk past she will run over to them just to say hello but she jumps up at them because she wants them to play.
she is realy good with other dogs if she is on the lead she doesnt pull me to get to them. But we couldnt walk past another dog if she was off the lead because she would want to play and i would have to but her back on the lead to be able to walk away.She is 18 months and still nips and this can hurt

What have you been doing to stop the nipping so far?

Have you been letting her know that it hurts?

Yelping when she does it and then ignoring her may help with this.

AS for retreval, it can be one of the most difficult things to do, have you tried her with treats, just for this exercise.

Also outside thing but I presume that her hearing is ok?

Her hearing is fine i asked the vet about that the last time we was there. When we take her out we do take treat and this sometime works with her and she doesnt run off. She is a great dog full of life and always very play full and i dont think she will change. We have tried dog class and they went well but we moved out of the area so we are now looking for new dog class. Thank you for your advice

Hi, My 3 Staffords are the same, They go totally deaf if they are having fun! What we do is turn our backs to them & walk away saying 'see you later' , They panic & come running. It doesn't work every time but 9 times out of 10 it does.
mine also think that every person that walks past is just there to say hi to them.
Hope this helps a bit, might be worth a try It works for us anyway.
Trace.

I have the same problem with my 8 month Lab, she wants to play so bad and will completely ignore me if there is another dog or person around, yet she comes back to me every time when we're on our own. To help with this I have a 5 metre cord (which I dismantled from a broken flexi lead), which I attach to Emmy. It is light and dosen't get tangled, it just drags behind her. Normally she does not wander far from me, so if we see another dog or person now, I can quickly put my foot on the cord (I tied knots at random intervals) and reel her in. I also stop her at random points during our walk, dog or no dog and call her back to me, encouraging her with the cord if she does not come straight away. Word of warning though, never grab the cord with your hands! I got a bad case of rope burns once, so now wear gloves! I'm hoping she won't need the cord for ever, just until she grows out of puppyhood and learns 'come' reliably. Good luck.

Hi

I think this is a case of incomplete training. You need to go back to putting her on a line in the garden and making sure that she responds to your recall 10 out of 10. Once you are sure she understands what 'come' means you should then make sure that she comes whatever distractions are around. Do this while she is still on a line. Have someone else throw a ball for her and just before she gets there give her a 'come' command, a little jerk on the line and reel her in. Once she knows the exercise you should not give her any leeway. Its not a case of sometimes she comes, sometimes she doesn't. She should come every time. Don't let her run free until you go back and retrain the recall to her responding immediately EVERY TIME.

Good luck

As well as the sound advice already given try "clicker training" your Staffie to do things at home unconnected with the recall. I got this tip from the net and it has worked with my lurchers . As well as constantly reinforcing recall training (I use a whistle as it seems to get to through to them better than calling )I've clicker trained them to touch a target at the end of the garden and various other little exercises. I take the clicker and treats out with me and somehow the positive reinforcement training for simple tricks etc seems to have encouraged them to stay closer to me when off lead as they seem keen on wondering what to do next to earn a click and a treat. At long last I seem to be a bit more interesting to them than rabbits, dogs and other people.
Kind regards
Eleanor.

my 4 month old staff is exactly the same. she goes totally deaf when shes off lead and sees other dogs on the park. when shes on lead shes really good and shes a very very friendly dog, really good with other dogs and wants to say hello to everyone. especially children, women and anyone who is jogging! but then even when were home, and we want her to come, she reacts kind of slow and only comes when she feels like it. depending on her mood, she might come running or we have to say come come come for like 5 minutes before she finally decides to come!!!

dont know if this'll work for you but it has worked a treat with my lab!!!!

does she like squeeky toys??????

Darcy goes mad for them, so I banned them all from the house and now take her loudest squeeker with me whenever we go for a walk.

I keep it in my pocket and if it looks like she's about to do a disappearing act I give it a few loud squeeks and she comes straight back.
Then we have a tug of war and a good play with it and if the other dog has gone the toy goes back in the pocket but if the dog is still there I will slip her lead back on just to be on the safe side!!!!

My Staffy adores sticks . He's 7 months old and when he goes racing off we shout "Fetch the Stick" and he turns around to go and fetch the stick . Again he is only being friendly by racing off to greet some one or another dog as he loves everyone and everything and his recall is 100% if no one else is around - but i think sometimes the speed of him makes others alittle wary :)
Lel