We, my 11 month English Pointer and I, had a rough walk yesterday.  Well, I had a bad time, but my pup had the time of her life!  The community woods we run daily has ducks now.  And, the ducks are much more fun than me.  Well, my pup's recall was non-existant.  And, then I could not find her.  This is one of the few times I was holding my breath and my heart started to speed up because I could not find her or hear her.  This happened twice in an hour.

My question is on recall.  When the dog does not come on the first command, then what?  How long do we wait before we give the command again?

I know about the long line, but I have to give her time to sprint and really run.  My yard is just not large enough.  And she turns into wild pup, if she does not run some out.  In fairness, her recall is about 90% without other dog distraction which I thought was pretty good for her age and breed.

To top of a rotten walk for me, at the end, we run into our old dog trainer.  The trainer had not release her dogs to play.  And, as my pup is pulling on the leash with all her might to get to the trainer's dogs.  My trainer tell her dog "slide" with no hand signals.  The GSD runs up the path about the length of a football field, runs up the play equipment, runs down the slide, runs all the way back to her trainer, and ends in a sit position!

I am observing a new obedience class this week.  I was not comfortable with the above trainer's use of slip collar (once causing my pup to vomit a treat on a "leave it"  exercise).  But I digress....although venting is good for me.

My question is on recall.  When the dog does not come on the first command, then what?  How long do we wait before we give the command again?

You don't repeat commands otherwise the dog will learn to avoid the first one.  The best advice I can give is not to put the dog in a position where it can disappear or disobey.  You have a gundog which likes to range, that is its breed characteristic as is putting up birds.  If you allow the dog off to run off the lead then you run the risk of it disobeying and disappearing, maybe for good until and unless your training is good enough; sound recall training will not be perfected until another year has passed and so keep at it :D

Tohme,  thank you for the response.  Considering what I have said, do you think I should go back to only leash walks?  She now knows these woods very well.  I doubt she would lose me.  Ha.  But, I don't want to send the wrong obedience message...I don't "think" losing the free run time is going to be positive on her behavior in the house.  Heck, I don't know.

To be honest I cannot imagine keeping a dog like this on the lead full time; perhaps you can work on a compromise; there is an old saying, never blow a whistle up a gundog's a*** :D, each time you give a command and it is ignored you are just teaching the dog to disobey.  Perhaps you can only give the command when the dog is already coming back and reinforce it with a particularly yummy treat that she gets on no other occasion?

HTH

This sounds like a good idea.  Currently, I have been giving treats each time she comes back regardless if she returned on her own or after a couple calls.  That was recommended at the time, and we did see an improvement on recall.  I think we are past that at this point, and I want to get better yet.  Currently, whenever she returns she expects a treat.  I was happy she was "checking in with me"  and rewarding that.  Humm.  I do like the idea of a special treat for recalls and calling her when she has started back to me.  I agree on leash full time issue, and I was glad to hear that was your thinking too.

We currently are just using Eukanuba and Science Diet treats occasionally a raw carrots.   Are there particular treats dogs love that you would recommend?   

Hmmmm, If I asked you to take the garbage out in the pouring rain whilst you were ensconced in front of the fire watching your favourite movie in return for a bowl of cabbage soup, how motivating would this be? :D  Would you feel different if in return you were offered a bubble bath, massage, glass of champagne and a fillet steak?

You need SEXY food to motivate dogs, unfortunately this does not smell so good to us; eg smelly cheese, cooked liver or liver cake, frankfurters etc.

Carrots! Huh!  No contest when the woods and birds beckon.........................................

Yes do NOT treat for a check in, only for specific compliance with requests, then you can shape recalls so that only the fastest are rewarded, also mix the treats up so that you are a human slot machine, she never knows what is coming next, cheese, liver, etc etc

HTH

Cooked liver or liver cake...what in the world...do you buy this stuff or make it? 

I have never had bought, cooked, or eaten liver? 

But, if it would help keep her close...I can try to get it for her, that is. 

you don't make liver :)

great with fava beans and a bottle of chianti :D

If you can't stand liver you can make liver cake with tinned fish, I use pilchards in tomato sauce or pink salmon when our local store has it buy one get one free.

Very cute!

My mother was forced to eat Liver and Onions as a child.  She hated it.  So, I have never had to eat it nor had the desire.  I have no clue what these cakes will even smell like.  But, will give it a try.

You buy liver (;) ) and make liver cake - if you do a search (top righthand corner of the screen) and type in liver cake you'll get the recipe. But plain boiled liver is excellent.
:)

Ummm... :rolleyes: ...and where were you with this advice when I first joined & then proceeded to ask for it in the local pet shop ???
;)

Do you not eat offal in the States then?  Lambs liver, pigs liver, ox liver is huge, you can just poach it and then dry it out in the oven or dehydrate it in the dehydrator.  Stinks like mad mind :D

Def. best done in the garage with peg on nose.

I have read your replies and all good advice.  Remember the one rule.NEVER run after her, as she will see it as a game.  Run away and she will more often than not panic and want to be with you but as the others said only if you are more interesting than the ducks.
if you do not like handling liver which alot of people don't, then wear gloves (rubber) and use scissors to cut into smallish pieces and then place on kitchen towel and put in the microwave until like little biscuits (usually 10 minutes) depending on wattage of your microwave.
Good luck and you will get there in the end.  All those people you see with obedient dogs have worked hard for a long time and if they havent then they are lucky.

Tania

You don't often see dogs like pointers and such like panic if you run away as they are generally too far away to notice :D  They are far and wide ranging dogs unlike others that like to keep their owners in view :D

So very true...my pre-dog days...I would day dream of a dog to mosey along side of my during my evening walks.  This is not an pointer.  But, these dogs are just strikingly beautiful when they run at their top speed.  I really need to find a training that understands pointers to help me. 

Darling

I so agree with your comment re 'pre dog days' of having a dog that stayed with me - I just didn't realise that pointers would range so much (I have a GSP) and I too would love to get into some training with a trainer who understood what they are like - the clicker (bless its heart) just doesn't work when my dog has gone 'deaf' and run three fields away!!! also the long line would have to be very long for me to stand on when she has bolted (wiith no warning of course!!!!!!!!).

I take her to a riverside walk with flat fields and (so far) no/few temptations - this keeps her near (?) me and still allows her to run free which she so needs to do.  Her recall is getting better (she is one ) but I can't say I can relax on a walk and we have to travel to the 'safe place' which is less than ideal but worth it.

Goodluck

I and a few other owners of HPRs would disagree that a clicker is not of any use in training them; obviously one would not be using it if they had already bogged off as that is not what it is there for :D

A very successful Working Trials Competitor who has already trained up a GWP into an Irish and UK Working Trial Champion clicker trains and my Weimaraner is completely clicker trained for Working Trials, agility, schutzhund etc; there are also those who work gundogs in the field who clicker train their dog.

English Pointers and the Continental HPR breeds have very high exercise needs, they also require a great deal of training; all of which should have been stressed by your breeder.  None of my trainers have ever owned or worked a pointer or HPR, they have all owned/worked BC/WSD, GSD, mongrels! :D

A system/method is only as good as the person operating it!

Tohme,

Does your Weimaraner heel?  I am wondering if there is any hope of heel.

Er yes!  There is always hope :D  Unfortunately you have to invest a lot of time and training into achieving heelwork.  Again, look at how you are motivating your dog, give her a reason to heel :D

That is so similar to my breed too, they don't get worried about not being with you, and you really aren't the most exciting thing on the planet for them either.

I have found with most of them that as long as recall is established when very young then they are pretty good off lead, with the occasional, hang on a minute must just finish sniffing this.

Th3e one that has been most challenging was the untrained adolescent.  She is a dream on a flexi, returns immiediately without prompting when called.  Tried a long line, and while I held it or was abler to get within standing distance of it, same thing, but she knows exactly when I haven't a chance of MAKING her obey, and will thumb her nose at me.

She doesn't run away just wants to explore and return when she wants.

fortunately her dog and people manners are good, there is no problem getting her to slow her approach toward people/dogs on command of steady, and to walk on.

I now just make sure I only let her off in the safest places, only call the once and refuse to play her game of follow the leader.  This game consited of me changing direction opposite to the one she was taking, she would then let me get a certain distance, and run up from behind, and bark as she sped poast, and take up position ahead of me (usually about twice the distance at which the others mooch).  I now call and stand still in the place that I called her. 

This of course brings all the others back to me wondering what I am playing at.  I stand there praise the others, offer a treat etc, they usually end up sitting or lying down near me, and I wait, refuse to make eye contact with madam.  She stops her distance and pretends to be doing her own thing, all the time watching for me to move forward.  She moves on a few feet, then comes a bit closer nonchalantly sniffing, makes a wide arc, all the tiome getting a bit closer but still pretending to do something else.  Then suddenly she seems to make up her mind and trots towareds me, only to stop just out of reach and sniff around, if I then make a move she will head off in front again, so I continue to wait until she grudgingly decides enough already and trots towards me, at which point I say 'good girl, come'.  she sits in front and looks at my pocket, I attach lead, and gie treat.

Now don't get me wrong, this is not what she does every time, just the odd 10% that makes me careful.

Now I will never know if had I brough5t her up from the start if she would be as reliable as the others (who aren't angels, but know when I mean it).  Interestingly enough her 7 month old daughter acts as all the others have done, and if anything ally's herself with them and keeps close to them, as opposed to following her sometimes errant parent.  Must admit though I mainly keep Mum on lead when Ilet the pup off.

Really enjoyed these postings.  I know our breeders should have told us...but when they say a lot of exercise, I did not know what that meant.  This is my first dog.  The breeders knew this.  I thought a lot of exercise meant walking a couple of miles every day on a lead around town.  I am not sure a lot was done to curve our thinking.

I am trying to adjust my lifestyle to suit the needs of a gundog.  She will be one year old later this month, and I am looking for a new trainer to help me and our family. 

We camp a lot.  The breeders told us Pointers love camping.  I see lots of golden retrievers and labs just hanging around their camping trailers.  So far, we have to keep our pup on a long lead at our camper.   But, I hope if we can keep training her maybe we can give her that type of freedom while camping too.

i live near a beach & the pointer & setters down their just RUN! their owners can stand still & the dogs run up & down, sometimes out of sight, which doesnt seem to worry their owners!-it would worry me,but i can barely get my collies out from under my feet!!!!

Exactly, all the collie owners and GSD owners have to walk miles to exercise their dogs or throw balls, we can just sit in our chair, open the newspaper, pour the coffee and enjoy the scenery! :D

(must be why I am not as thin as a rake) :D

I must have an unusual collie then! :-( She doesn't stand still, although she is constantly checking where i am, shes half way down the beach before she decides to change direction and start again!!

All dogs are unique lucynmeg :) what makes em fun. Morses ranging does scare some people with different sorts of dogs. At the moment hes torn between call of the wild ( rabbit hunting) and doing as hes told. We get there with a bit of lateral thinking from yours truly, but Im still trying to get a balance between structured stuff outside and letting him gallop off duty so he dosent go totally "self employed". The other day I waited a good couple of minutes after whistling him before I heard him returning. Hed gone to another owner who uses a dog whistle so she had a pleasant rapid response to the whistle - just wrong dog as she expected her cocker!

Just had the worst walk ever - came home and cried my eyes out. I was so worried and disappointed. My Border Terrier is, 99% of the time, a wonderful lad and well behaved. Just recently though, off lead, he's had a mind of his own and totally ignores me. We go to a lovely area which he knows well, maybe too well. I know it's rabbits that he's after, but just an hour ago, he went into the woods, not a vast area (up on a hill which you can do a complete circle of in 5 mins or so) and refused to come out. I usually stay in the same place so that he knows where to find me, but today, for some reason I walked along just a few feet. Thank goodness I did as I saw him out of the corner of my eye, running out of the woods and down the path. He ignored when I called and just ran. I found him trying to get under a fence which leads into a hotel golf course. I felt so sick with worry and panicked. I called and called and pretended to eat the treats in my pocket. Eventually he came back - I did the wrong thing I know, and shouted at him. I broke down when I got home, I was so frightened. Don't know what would have happened if he had got under the fence. Does he realise what he's done wrong ?. I don't think so. What do I do ?. We love going up there but I can never let him off the lead again. When will this rabbit season finish ?. Last year he was just a pup and didn't bother going into the woods. If he was a bigger dog I'd worry less (wouldn't fit down a rabbit hole !) but off lead now is too worrying although he his better when he occasionally meets two particular dogs that he runs around with.

Thank You.

Val.

Tell me about it. My retriever is just about to turn one and so far i thought we were having an easy adolescence as she had a really good recall. Ha! Tonight, i took her for her usual walk along the cliff top, which is surrounded by bushes, and about 100 yards away there is a reasonably quiet road. She has been so good with her recall and has walked there loads of times, yet now all she wants to do is dive into the bushes after those darn rabbits and eat their droppings. I had to resort to the lead in the end because she nearly gave me a heart attack every time she dashed for the bushes because i thought she would end up on the road. It is so frustrating because she goes completely deaf, and sometimes if i run in the opposite direction and call her she will actually look up and then carry on with whatever she was doing. I am going to have to go back to the long line again as she is being so disobedient and every time she ignores me shouting, whistling and gesturing i think to myself that she is learning to completely ignore me. I couldn't believe it tonight because i took her out on an empty stomach and she was really hungry (when isn't a GR hungry?!) and yet she chose rabbit droppings over my liver cake, the cheek!! I don't suppose there is much you can do though, apart from work on the recall or an emergency stop.

How do you begin to teach an emergency stop ?. I think it would really be of use. As I said, he is so good normally and is very easy to train - but I guess rabbit's win over Mum !.

Would appreciate some tips.

Thanks.

Val

Could try making Rabbit dropings cake :D sorry :(

My cooking is pretty suspect at the best of times - droppings would probably be an improvement !!!

Val

Val I really sympathise as Morse has done this to me as well, going after rabbits the worst one was in the winter in a park after dark and I thought Id lost him. We went back to long lines for ages after that. I ve had to stick to boring places so I can keep him doing things with me instead of being the great black and white hunter in an attempt to gain control, but if Im honest I think his hunting instinct is so strong I may have missed the boat. Its amazing how dogs can unleash all your strong emotions - love, fear of loss, pride when they do well and lots of laughter at their antics. I used to be very stiff upper lip a year ago - pre Morse.