i got my GSD benji when he was 13 weeks old. i was his 2nd home since the breeders, the home before me bought him from the breeders along with another pup and basically did nothign at all with him, apart from shout at him.

when benji first came to me he was very shy and nervy, he lacked basic socilisation skills and spent most of his time hiding by my legs with his tail tucked in.
well here we are he is 17 weels old now and a diffrent dog ;-)

he is a lot more confident, he will seek out and play with other dogs( ones we have got to know slowly and carefully), he is starting to retreive. and he will sit and recall on command no problems.

however recently his recall has gone from being effective 99.9% to about 70%. sometimes he will aknowledge me by looking at me and will head towards me, but a few strides away from me he will then ssometimes run back to what he was doing.

i have been thinking about it as its onbly been happening recently and i have discovered that it tends to be when i recall him from playing with a bitch.

all other times he is fine.

ussually the bitch will run over to benji who will be sat at my side and then instigate play. so he will follow her to play.

he has not tried to do anything sexual yet, but i was wondering if this is a sign that his sexual hormones are starting to kick in and would this be classed mroe of an instinctive behaviour rather than a disobediant behaviour?

when he is being his 99.9% self i only have to call him once sometimes twice to back up the first recall. but on his 70%
days he nees calling up to 5 times. at which case he does finally come back, but ussualy after the 3rd attempt i close the distance between us and once he sees me walkign towards him and pointing to my feet he ussualy comes straight away and sits looking a bit sorry for him self.

what to do you think?

It's normal, but remember that you should  "set him up for success" so that if you are calling him more than once, you may be doing the opposite and calling him when he finds it hard to concentrate or even hear you properly.

Being young, he will be distracted, it's a big wide world and all for him to explore! ;) I'd personally let him play, but give him a Release word sich as "OK" and when you call him back, wait until he is tired and ready to come back anyway... plenty of praise and food rewards (liver, chicken etc not boring biscuits).

Gradually over time you will be able to call him away when he is playing with other dogs, start to think about making yourself very interesting and use toys etc to train if you don't already :)

Lindsay
x

Totally agree with Lindsay - my youngster has been great on recall from a tiny pup (I did breed her so not sure if that was a plus or not ;) ) but now she's got to the "Tracey" stage - went to the park both yesterday and today and off she went to play and NO WAY was she coming back when I wanted :rolleyes:  Fortunately she was playing with dogs she meets every other day and their owners' were patient and even helped me "trick" her back but looks like a long line will be coming out .....

It's very hard with pups and juveniles in general to ensure they'll come back 100% of the time so we're back, if not to basics, then at least to not even attempting to distract her from something that's just *too* much fun, lots of mini-recalls where she gets a treat and allowed to go off again and then randomly putting on the lead.  Oh, and when any of that fails, quickly stamping on the end of the line :P :D

Good luck, Teri