Hi, I am new to this board and have spent most of the evening reading through some of the boards. The topic on whistles certainly caught my attention. I know you have already covered this subject but I have a further couple of questions.

I have three dogs and when out walking in the woods one day quite suddenly came across a couple walking two greyhounds that rushed out from a track in the woods straight across our path in front of us. As you would expect my dogs decided that they didn't like being ambushed like this and immediately took chase. The gentleman put a whistle to his lips and all five dogs came to an abrupt stop!

I must admit that my three are not that well trained, but one is better at something than the other. The German Shepherd is great at recall, although if she is excited she will only come back so far and then rush off again. The Gordon Setter is wonderful on the lead, not too bad at recall if we trick him into thinking we are going anywhere other than back to the car!! These two are just two years old. Then there is the Tibetan Terrier who has just reached the ripe age of ten. She generally walks on my heels most of the way around unless she knows that there are pheasants in the pens in the woods.

My question is, how would you train three dogs to the whistle all at once. The only time we can do this is when out for their daily walks. Would it be a different whistle for each of the dogs? Or would you use one of the whistles that you can play a tune on, therefore using a different note for each dog? All I really want at this time is for them to come back to recall and sit in front of you until released again. Would you concentrate on getting one dog trained at a time? If you try and train them all at the same time how do you react to the two that were not called but have come anyway expecting a treat?

By the way, my other half walks them in the week (weather permitting) and I walk them at the weekend.

Hope you can give me advice on this.
Thanks
Dawn

Unless you can trust two of the three dogs to sit patientally whilst you train the third dog, then you will need to teach them one at a time. If you only intend to teach recall/sit, then one whistle will be fine. Personally, I use one whistle for numerous dogs but then I use hand signals and voice (using their names) as well. If there are two people training the dogs, then you need to make sure your commands are identical and that the dogs respond immediately to any command you make. Personally, I would recommend that you take them out one at a time, but use identical commands for all three. I do not use treats. My dogs come to me because they love me :D

I think Admin has covered just about everything here. Just a couple of things. Whilst I may use a treat with a pet dog to teach it to go to the position I want, be that the heel position or to come in front of me, I would never use treats for a dog which knows what's required. A command is just that, a command! Not a request!

Whilst I always call my dogs in the happy voice all books mention, just let them ignore me and see what happens! My voice changes to real "Anglo Saxon"! I tell them exactly what I think of them in words of one syllable! As soon as the shock of the voice change had the desired effect of stopping them with the thoughts, "Dad's not happy!" then I change back to the happy voice to call them in. As I said, it is not a request to be obeyed if there is nothing better to do, it is an order and an order deserves instant obedience.

I must also say, I do not stop my dogs playing with every dog. That is the way to make them wary of others. Give them the idea that other dogs are something to guard against. If the person with the other dogs looks happy for them to play then that's ok with me but if they look apprehensive I take the hint and call mine off.

Regards, John

Hi John
When you say you go all "Anglo Saxon" if your dogs don't respond to the happy voice, do they respond straight away? We are still persevering with a long line from time to time, but because of the happy voice advice in all the books, and the "never tell them off when they do come back" thing - I am unsure what to do for the best when Sparky chooses to ignore a recall command. If he is off lead, what I tend to do when he has a blip and  eventually get him back to me, is take him back physically to where he was when I called or whistled him, make him sit there for a second (and blow the "sit" whistle), then walk him back to where I was, saying "come", and blowing his "come" whistle as I do it. If it is a slow recall, rather than a "completely ignore Mum" recall, I must admit that I still praise him when he eventually comes back, though very briefly, should I stop this?
Cheers,
Tracy

The books are correct about the "Happy Voice" bit but that's not the end of the story. If the dog does not comply then the change of voice is warranted. The angry voice is not being used to call the dog, it's expressing my disapproval of the disobeying of a command. As soon as I have my dog's attention then the voice changes back.

Few people say a thing and actually sound as if they mean it. One command is all that should ever be given. If it is not obeyed then the next time it is enforced! The dog is never given the chance to disobey twice! It sounds hard but really it's not because the dog very soon gets into the habit of obeying first time so never gets told off!

Taking a dog back to the place where the crime was committed is fine just as long as it is almost instantaneous after the crime was committed otherwise obviously the dog will not relate the correction to the crime.

The one thing I'm trying to say here is consistency! Always mean what you say and never give a command unless you are able to enforce it. Not coming when called is one of the biggest problems I find with young dogs coming to training.

Regards, John

While most of the time my lab is Ok at recall there have been a few occasions recently when he has totally ignored me in spite of using Anglo Saxon!  It always happens when he finds a particularly appealing scent in the bushes.  He will either ignore both happy and cross voice or ignore happy voice and look up at me momentarily when I use cross voice but immediately go back to sniffing the bush.  Hiding has no effect (it does in any other situation) and I usually have to go and pull him away unless he has lost interest by the time I get there!  He has just turned eight months and has also recently started marking so I assume his hormones are working overtime.  Is this part of the teenage stage and does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle/correct it?  I am not sure I am doing the right thing going to him when he is ignoring me as most people say walk away.  Any advice would be gratefully received.
Many thanks, Jenny

If your dog does not obey your command instantly, get after him and make him do it. He needs to know that you are not happy that he disobeyed you. The fact that he might start coming towards you as you approach is neither here nor there. He has disobeyed you and you need to put him straight. Give one, clear command and make sure he obeys that command. Do not give multiple commands before you reinforce it. All that happens is that he will work out how many times you will command him before he needs to obey. He must obey first time - every time. There is no excuse :-)

Hi Tracy excuse me for butting in, but let me share another of my many mistakes with Manic Morse. I was so glad he came back I rewarded him for messing about and coming back 2 or 3 yells later with the same intensity for coming asap! Now Ive learned to prevent selective deafness as John does ( no stranger to Anglo Saxon, me!) with a Morse- stopping roar and to vary my responses to his. The best get hot dogs, soso is good boy, and pants is back on lead and say no more about it.  I have more confidence and authority with him now and he respects it. What your doing seems good to me as it  gives wrong behaviour a consequence and reinforces the right thing.

The other day I went out without my bag of treats and discovered I dont need so many as Morse still fell over himself to fetch ( I never tire of this as it was a long time coming)  heel off lead etc. Doh! John and the rest know about varying rewards and phasing them out once the dog understands, I have to learn the hard way.  

Fault training. Repeat commands soon become just sounds rather than commands. Praise when he finally comes means that you are happy for him to come after the twentieth command! Neither is giving the right impression to the puppy

Like I said before, we are not being hard insisting the command is obeyed first time. In fact it could one day save his life!

Best wishes, John

Thanks Lorelei - You and me both with the "hard way"!
What makes me laugh is I've asked more questions about raising Sparky than I did about raising the kids! I reckon I am going to have to be as tough on him as I am on them - my youngest was looking at the new calendar on the fridge this morning and said "Mum, how come Sparky's birthday is on the calendar, but mine isn't?" Oops. Do keep those anecdotes coming, though, they do make me smile!
Tracy

Hi Dawn,

Yesterday I saw a program on border collies and it covered used multiple dogs for herding.  The shepherd used a different word for each dog. "Move left" was word A for the first dog and word B for the second dog.

When I had more than one dog, prefacing a command with the dog's name always worked for me.  None of them ever got confused.

Stacey

Using separate commands for each dog is only necessary when you want them to do different thing simultaneously such as using two or more collies to work sheep.  If you just want to stop and recall your dogs either individually or as a group then one command will suffice! :D.  A gundog whistle will probably be enough for this; if you train your dogs to do more than you will probably need a sheepdog whistle; however, these take a long time to master :D

I find with both of mine i only need to blow the whistle once and they both come running sit in front, i praise, treat and then either put them on leads or let them go again. It would be nice to be able to recall them separately but as long as they are coming back i'm happy. I tend to find when i call one the other comes anyway because they respond to the tone of voice just as much as the word so i could be calling anything and they would still come back. The same works with the whistle i guess. With the whistle i associated it with something good by blowing it before the get food and then recalling them and blowwing almost simultaneously and with the pup i blow the whistle and then quickly run off in the other direction. She is quickly learning that whistle means fun chasing game/i'm going to leave her.