I have two Border Collies and would like to train them to recall to a whistle when they are together.  They do both have great recalls by name but I worry about the day that something might happen that I may need to call them both back quickly and the whistle seems the ideal way to do this.  Also we go up on the moors a lot and quite often it is so windy they cant hear me so again a whistle seems like a good idea. 

Does anybody have any tips to getting started?

Well, if they already have a good recall to "come," then just add a whistle right after you say, "come" and pretty soon try just the whistle. That's what I did with a "silent" dog whistle. People can barely, if at all hear it, it's so high in pitch. But the dogs hear that frequency. It works well for me, except when one of my dogs is chasing after a black bear. Then he's on a hunt and kill mission and he goes deaf. (that's a story from another thread.)

Good luck to you.

Carrie

As Carrie has said, as you've got such a good recall by name, adding a whistle won't be particularly difficult.  I use lots of pips of the whistle for the recall and I find the best whistle is the Acme 210 and a half which you can get in most gun shops or if you do a search on google, you should find somewhere that sells them online.  This means if you lose the whistle, you will be able to replace it with exactly the same tone one.

Helen

Using a whistle is an extremely good idea especially in very windy weather and if, like me, you have dogs that range a lot and you need to give stop/left/right commands of up to half a mile away.  I use a sheepdog whistle or lip/penny whistle, the type that shepherds use when working sheep with their collies.  It carries much further than a gundog whistle and has the advantage that you can "play tunes" on it :D whereas with a gundog whistle the tone remains the same it is only the length and frequency of the "pips" that change and so your range of commands may be limited.

The disadvantage of the sheepdog whistle is that they are not always easy to use and can take a long time to master :D

If you precede your normal vocal command by a whistle they will soon learn that this whistle is the precursor to "come" and then you can fade out your vocal command altogether.

The great thing about whistles is it looks so much "cooler" than yelling and no one knows if your dog's are ignoring you or not as they don't know what the whistle commands mean :D :D

Oooooh

Tohme, sorry to change the topic slightly, but ive got a shepherds whistle, for the same reason you use one, but.............

i cant get a bloody sound out of it!

Any tips or is there anywhere online i can go to find out?

Em (slightly embarrassed!)

I think it is one of those things you have to experiment with yourself.  It took me three months and I used to practice in the car going to/from work (which gave drivers at traffic lights something to watch) :D

All I can say is you don't really blow..................... (careful) :D You more or less breath out, once you have got it you won't understand why it took you so long :D

Once I could play Rule Britannia on it and I had decided what my commands were going to be for the dog then I started using it.

Not much help am I? :)

Hehehe,
I had a feeling it would be something like that..... ill just have to go sit in the woodshed and practice!

I bet its similar to when i learned to whistle with my fingers... took all summer, but i learned..... im just not very good at it now!

Em

thanks to everyone for their advice.  Doesnt sound too hard after all and will start giving it a go this weekend.  And as luck would have it Helen it is an Acme 210 that I bought the other day so hopefully this will be just the job.

Claire