My 11 month old weim has thus far progressed extremely well in all the aspects of basic obedience and field training. He has proved steady and biddable and I have high hopes of him. However - he willfully disobeys the stop whistle or the hand signal for 'sit' when I am at some distance from him. He understands the command as when I give it close in (say 15 feet) he responds. It is almost as if he thinks- "well my owner can't get me out here I will just ignore him". Is this a maturity thing or does anyone have any suggestions for improvement? Many thanks

Basically he has learnt the distance at which he can disobey you. To cure it you need to go back to basic's and enforce the stop whistle/hand signal on every occassion. You must make sure that if you blow a stop whistle he is close enough for you to be able to get to him and enforce it. This may mean that you need to cover the ground inbetween you and him by running. Once he learns that you will come after him if he disobey's, then he will not be so willing to do it. The only other thing that I can suggest is that you put him on a tracking line (very long lead) and again, enforce the command. Try to get on top of this problem quickly or you will find that the recall will be the next thing to go. Above all else, don't forget to praise him every time that he drops to the whistle. From your description, he sounds like he is shaping up nicely. I am sure that you will overcome this problem very quickly.

Let us know how you get on :-)

Leigh

Can tell you what I've been successful with with our flatcoats (most of the time!). Don't know if the same would work with Weims.

Flatcoats love tennis balls, so I use them as a reward. Start the dog on the whistle coming towards you (not going out on a retrieve to start with; they may become sticky). Blow the stop whistle and raise hand. Hopefully dog sits. Count to 5. Throw ball and say simultaneously '.fetch it'.

The ball is the reward for stopping. This is not running in as such, as you have given the command 'fetch it'.

When you're out on an ordinary walk, and the dog is wandering in front of you, on the odd occasion, when he's not expecting it, blow your whistle. Hopefully he'll look at you, as he's by now expecting a reward; raise your hand; hopefully he'll sit. Then repeat counting to 5, and throw ball as before. You can build up distance as dog gets confidence that you are more fun than wandering off doing his own thing.

Hope this helps.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats