my puppy is now 4 months and we've mainly been practising recall in the garden where she is pretty good as she is very food orientated(GR). I do sometimes let her off in a quiet area on our walks and keep calling her back and she is pretty good. She has just discovered squirrels though so today was slightly hesitant to come back right next to me but would come a yard or two away. vet said I should leave her off the lead when we walk but I am reluctant to overdo time off the lead yet as she is still very young and also timid and easily spooked by some (but not all) older dogs. My worry is that if she meets a scary dog-- and there are plenty of those around here, then she may actually scoot off in the other direction. Am I being too protective do you think???

No you aren't being overprotective my friend had a whippet that was chased out of the park by her house by another dog and she never got it back.  You know your area and your dog best i would go with your gut My dogs are totally different Cindy walks to heel as soon as she is off lead whereas at the beach Milo is almost impossible with recall so Cindy spends most of her time off lead and Milo is let off when we get to the quiet fenced in area.

The best thing is always to let a pup off the lead ASAP -from day one really, on the very first walk. The younger they are, the more reluctant they are to leave you (pups are like little ducklings,follow your feet so you almost fall over them), and the older they grow, the more confident they feel and are less likely to feel worried if they leave you. So always best to start off with very young pup off lead, run away and hide, keep changing directions etc (WITHOUT calling after the first few times), teach the pup he or she must keep their eyes on YOU as you are an unpredictable so and so and may disappear if not watched closely. Laying that groundwork early on usually means a very reliable recall for the rest of the dog's life. I still act the same always though,all their lives, changing directions and jumping behind bushes etc, so my dogs never forget about keeping their eyes on me. Then when they find me hiding, HUGE fuss and reward. It's a great game to them. I've timed them, it never takes them more than max 10 seconds to find me even if they are far ahead of me. :)

I wish i could let mine off.  They don't respond to food or anything when they have something else better to do.  Selective deafness I rekon!

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to... :-(

As long as your dog has something that is more interesting to it than anything else (i.e. food), you should be ok.  Have you thought of using a retractable lead at first and practising recall on a longer lead?

yes she is on a long retractable lead so does get to run ahead and every now and again I call her back always with lots of praise and a small treat. It's not a problem yet- jusy don't want to do the wrong thing and create one that's all

Hi Jen

The best way to train the recall would be to take them out seperately ;)  You will see a great difference in their attention towards you :)

Lucy
xx

I'm with Marianne, I always let mine off the lead on their very first walk - they're unsure of their surroundings and won't leave my side. As they get more confident and start exploring more I do the changing direction thing :)  I call them back often for treats, but try to never call them back to get their leads on - I would rather just clip their lead on as they walk past - that way they never associate coming back as an end to fun.

Same here, in fact they very rarely gon on a lead unless road walking or near livestock.

I do call her back, praise her etc then let her go off again but then eventually call her back to put lead on.  I will try just popping lead back on when she's near rather than calling. I think I'm probably a bit worried about her being away from my control as when she was 1st out (11 wks and on the lead near our house) 2 dogs in 2 days had a real nasty go at her and she was doing nothing--she went hysterical. Though she seems fine with other dogs now I'm scared of her reaction if this happens when she is off the lead and that she may not come back to me. Thats why I want to make sure we get the recall thing well in place before she is totally off the lead

I agree with Goldmali, mine are off the lead from 7 weeks.  I never rely on the lead (except of course where necessary for safety).  The trouble is, if you NEVER let the dog off the lead until the recall is 100% the dog may never come off it........... and how will you train?

had a good long session off the lead today, hiding behind trees etc--had good fun. Also managed to recall her when she was on her way to join in a game of football in an open field, so very pleased with things at the mo!

another thought is that if a dog has a go at her when she is trapped on the lead isnt that even worse for her? nowhere to run? if a dog has a go at mine he just runs a few feet away or behind me, but at least he can run.

Yes I see what you mean- I'm going to be a bit braver!

When I bring a pup home, we start by playing recall games in the gardens until the vaccinations are done. Then it's straight out for an off-lead walk while the pup is still far more worried about losing me than the other way round. Admittedly, this first walk is out in the fields away from roads and not in town where the greater number of dogs out and about means a greater chance of meeting an iffy one.

However, I still believe that dogs need to learn dog language and that often, anxiety about the possibility of them running away or meeting an unfriendly dog can be transmitted to the dog in a way that can encourage mutual nervousness.

I continue to practice recall all the time and he returns well to the whistle I trained him with. Although having got an absolute GIT so far as hunting and the associated selective deafnessthat comes with it is concerned, I'm careful to thwart his desire to disappear by being careful about where and when he's walked off lead. In Nips's case, late afternoon anywhere rural with plenty of hedges can be a greater temptation than he can resist and there's not a treat in the world that can beat the joy of a couple of hours hunting the same 20 yards or so of impenetrable bramble bush.  Since he was bred for hunting he's only doing what comes naturally but he wouldn't let me out of his sight when he was a little pup.

So be brave!

I think one of the biggest mistakes pet owners can make with their dogs is to have them on the lead constantly for the first 6-12mths or more of their lives,their excuse being that they are too young to be let off the lead :rolleyes:
The only time my dogs are on lead is when i'm near a road,which is hardly ever.They are trained to walk off lead from their very first walk and it flows from there,i have never had recall problems.

I'm also a great beleiver in letting pups of lead as soon as you can but I do think that it is easier with a breed like mine - Belgians have a natural tendency to circle their owners and even as tiny pups will never stray too far - other breeds - particulalrly sight hounds may be more problematic :rolleyes:

Yvonne

Tell me about it.  This is where the choosing your off lead places carefully to minimise the urge to bogg off.  Also not to be too predictable on walks.  Mine are most likely to do a naughty if they are complacent about where we are and they think they know what route I will take and how long it will take me from point a to b meaning they have enough time to do their own thing, they think.

My worst offender is the one I had back at 8 1/2 months.  She had already practiced going self employed by then, and had not been taught recall when out.  The others have all been pretty reliale up to a point.

Great advice - however what do you do with an over-confident pup? With my last dog, I let him off the lead on his first walk, ran the other way and he couldn't care less! Too interested in the new world around him to be bothered about me! (His recalls in the garden had been going great). First dog I've ever had with a problem recall :rolleyes:

In my breed if you want to get a recall then I would always advise to take pup to a safely enclosed or large enough open space that the pup cannot readily escape from and let them off as young as possible when they will be wanting to stay as close to you as possible because they haven't the confidence to wander too far, and practise and practise lots of positive recalls, to set the habit. 

If left until older it can be really hard to stop them wanting to Bog off, but they are an independent type hunting breed who doesn't care one jot about being out of sight of you (AS OF COURSE THEY HAVE BEEN SELECTIVELY BRED TO RANGE AHEAD AND TRACK GAME).

I had this conundrum with my pup when we first got her.

The messages I got and advice I'd read followed the lines of 'don't let her off until her recall is 100%', mingled with 'don't give her more than 'X' minutes exercise per day' so we didn't let her off until around 5 months. My thinking was that if her recall was awful and we had a glorious game of chase she'd get too much exercise and learn to run off.

The after that I then read to let them off as soon as poss so that they stick to you like glue. I was gutted, and have had to work on her recall ever since.

The inescapable problem with the "don't let them off until their recall is 100%" theory is that it's impossible to know how good their recall is until they've been let off! So if you wanted to be 100% certain, you'd never be able to let them off at all. Besides, expecting 100% recall 100% of the time is setting owner and dog up for failure because, apart from the fact that everything dies eventually, nothing in Life is guaranteed, and so you'll be permanently dissatisfied and never be content. And where's the pleasure in that?

ok-we're back from our walk and my girl was off the lead for all the walk apart from along the road. This included woodland with lots of exciting squirrels and lots of little footpaths shooting off everywhere as well as 2 big open areas surrounded by trees. Anyway she was great and never went more than 10 yards or so ahead without looking round to see if I was still there. I did lots of recall, sometimes rewarding with a big fuss and lots of 'good girl' and sometimes with a food reward. We didn't meet any dogs, only when along the road and they growled and barked at her which she wasn't bothered by.
Only one hiccup really--- a jogger who she chased down the footpath and jumped up on. I called her back but she just got very excited and ran around in mad circles. Jogger waited until I did catch her and I put her on the lead until she had gone. In hindsite I think I should have just carried on walking and she would have come after me eventually--- will try that next time while she's still a bouncy pup and not too intimidating to the jogger who will be left with an over-excited dog trying to join in the fun

im glad it went well, its so much more fun isnt it

we bought a shelltie it was six month old we have always bought puppys before and the people lead us to believe that she was taking out for walks we took her out after a few  days we let her off lead and she was fine at first till a dog came up to play and she ran off  i tried to get her to come back but she was gone luckly we have no roads to cross the next few months were a night mare we had to gain her confferdance she was so frightend of everthing cars bikes people feet would not let strangers stroke her when friends and family came she would go and hide and she ran off a few more times but were we live it is a small village and people use to grab her for me and we just keept putting her on the lead and taking her off she was scared of my husband so i think she had been miss treated the people we bought her off had small children and the had other shelltie and they seem nice people but you never can tell any way she is great now plays with all the dogs on the field  and all the big dogs you would not bellieve it was the same dogi if she gets frightened for any reason she just comes back to us  so just keep at it you will get there is is no fun if you cant let them off the lead  like morgan says

Exactly.....

Being a first time dog owner, the advice I took on board sort of fitted a very (perhaps overly) protective worry that the little oik would run off into the far distance never to be caught again.....

We'll undoubtedly be different with the next pup....

Edited  - should have appeared uner jeanjeanies post...

i was told by my trainer to keep my dog on the lead for 18 months......i ignored that piece of advice.

We took the advise of our breeder when we got our Goldie, we had been several years without a dog and on her advice kept Finn on the lead which was a big mistake.  Bran however a flat coat we had off the lead straight away (when safe) on the advise of his breeder and the difference is huge.