Hello
I just have to come on here and praise my 11 month old BC. (and myself!!)

As you will remember she had a few naughty habits of running up to people and barking at them (scaring them to death!!), when we were on our walks over the field, and also nipped someone when it was snowing a few months ago, which was awful.  After being given so much good advise on here we decided in the end to speak to Ann Bussey (Behaviourist) and get her to come and see Dolly to see if she could help.  Ann is soooooo busy that we couldn't book an appointment with her until middle of April.

I was advised to keep her on a long line until we saw Ann ,which I was doing up until about 2/3 weeks ago.  I read another website which gave some good advise about this bahaviour and how to recall etc. They advised to change my whole approach to everything i.e any command I had been giving her to get her to come to me before, change to something different. Well, I went over the field and decided to call her name, clap and then open my arms wide to welcome her, I was so surprised but she did it straight away without any hesitation!!

Anyway to cut a long story short, I have been doing this every time we go out just to keep the momentum going and it still works every time!. She loves her ball to, so each time I throw it I call her after she has picked it up and she comes straight to me. (with a real happy, smiley face!!)  She also has no interest in people anymore, she looks at them but just carries on coming to me or picking the ball up.  It's so nice not to have to worry about her all the time and what she's going to do next. I think this has had a major impact also as I think she can sense that I feel happier when out with her.

I spoke to Ann a few days ago just to give her an update and she was very impressed!, she's still coming to see her but I think it will be more to do with her barking at people whilst she's on the lead than chasing people when she's not.

I hope this makes sense, I know I have gabbled, I'm just so proud of her and it shows that persistance does pay!

Jo
xx

Ahhhhhh. Thats definately a proud moment and touching to read :P

Jo
x

Well done, it is great when it all starts to come together.
So pleased for you.

Sandra

Brill

Well done Jo and your little girl! :D Thanks for the tip about changing the command/signal whatever. Glad your BC is so much happier too. Its good to hear someone getting results from training :)

The change command thing must work - though it took your post to point it out. Now you have mentioned it, it makes sense -  "Sparky come" when we are out on a walk is a bit of a joke, but "Sparky, this way" works a treat!

Thanks everyone for the comments, I'm just glad I had you lot when I had the trouble, all your advise really helped.

Jo

well done jo!