I have been following your advice as regards training recall. Super so far. My question is now we are up to recall on the long line. To be able to do this I would have to go to our local park armed with the bags of food. Would it not be dangerous to give the food whilst exercising. I am thinking of bloat?

Hope Tohme doesn't think I'm butting in but I'll quickly answer this to put your mind at rest Gaby :)
By all means a take bag of food, chicken is a godd thing but only reward a good recall with very tiny pieces, that way it keeps them interested in it, your aren't worrying about overfeeding and it doesn't cost you a small fortune :D
I use cheese and liver for training, and at shows, which i cut to pieces the size of a little finger nail, or sometimes even smaller.
HTH
Emily

Tohme's tip was not split dogs daily food into seperate portions and use for good recall on first command only. If no response to show the dog that it is disposed of. Hunger being the motivation. Gabi is 17months old and although she knows what Come means she will only obey if no other distractions. Given the command at home, she obeys first time but not in the park with other dogs and people. She just chooses to ignore. She is getting a jackpot with Tohme's method and this is working really well but by the end of the walk she has consumed her full ration of Chicken wings or such like and we are worried about Bloat as we then have to walk her home (I don't drive) about 15mins away. 

I think the method Tohme suggested was a good one.  If you are concerned about the amount of food she is consuming whilst on walks [I know very little about bloat] then keep her hungry (as per Tohme method) but just give her much smaller rewards for doing what she is asked whilst out.  This way she can then have the rest of her allowance when she gets home!

I had already been giving Gabi treats for doing as she was told but only very small amonts ie. Tunna bread, Liver and such like but was not working as she was having her meals at home as well. I used to walk her 2 hours after feeding. Maybe if I walked her an hour or two before feeding, the small treats might work better. 

Hi, I think I said, or meant to say, split up your dog's daily ration into portions and feed your dog only on recalls.

Having a breed that is prone to bloat and also that I raw feed I can see where you are coming from.

You can chop the wings into smaller portions ie into about 3 - 4 bits, I find gardening secateurs good for this (cheaper than kitchen shears).

TBH I use whole chicken wings for sendaways and redirects and have not had an issue with bloat/gdv etc.  But you must do what is comfortable for you.

Thanks Tohme. At first I thought Gabi would be starving under this regime but quite the opposite. A good recall every time, How long should I keep this up before we can try without the long line or going back to smaller treats? Don't want her to regress by doing it too soon.

Recalls, like any other behaviour, need to be generalised, therefore you need to get it rock solid in one area before moving to another one.  Dogs get quite location specific.

TBH I would always err on the side of caution a good, solid recall (and by that I mean when you can call your dog off a sniff, eating, other dogs, other people, a fight etc etc etc) is built like anything else on firm, deep and wide foundations.

Every time your dog fails to recall is another opportunity for it to rehearse/practise the wrong behaviour. 

The recall needs to become a conditioned response so you are talking weeks, months of training and keeping it up over the years.  And ALWAYS demanding the same quality of behaviour, as soon as you relax and become sloppy about your demands so will your dog..........

You can start off the line in a familiar place to begin with; I would actually diarise your sessions so that you can see if success is outweighing failure by counting the recalls.  If your dogs recall drops to below 80% then you need to go back a stage.

HTH