OK, I have now revised the problem we have after some thought to our previous problem with my dog running up to strangers to play. Thanks to those who helped me get it into perspective with their answers.
Basically I now agree there is nothing necessarily wrong with this if I could get him to recall instantly when in a challenging environment.
What happens at the moment is that he comes immediately at home, or when we are out on a long lead and even off lead with no distractions.
He will run past a treat or a toy to come to me, when training at home, or alone in the park.
He comes fairly promptly if smelling something  (few seconds).
He comes after a minute or two if playing with another dog.
He won't come back if he is interested in someone (especially a child) playing with a ball,stick, frisbee etc. Once he has run over to them he then starts to be very naughty,pestering them and even jumping up sometimes and will not come back when I call him, and even starts to run off when I approach him to take him away. I have twice requested the other person to take his collar for me and they have done, but he is now wise to that and dodges away from them too. This is learnt behaviour because he has had lots of fun playing with kids in the park before, he learns very fast which is good when learning positive things but bad when he learns to be naughty so fast, too.
I used to distract him by playing with him with a ball,and he is great at fetch if no-one else is about but he now takes the toy and runs up to children with his own toy, and again they often throw the ball etc before I can tell them not to.
I can only get him to come back by waiting until the other people go away, when he sheepishly slinks back to me sideways (like he knows i'm cross and he wants to come back, but is a bit scared - even though i do not tell him off when he finally comes to his senses and returns). Or sometimes by getting him to sit and wait and then he might let me approach him, or sometimes he jumps up and runs off a few feet as I come close. I am not sure what is going on in his mind, but feel he thinks the whole thing is a game.
I feel at the end of my tether.
He is a dog (lab/collie mix - 20 months) who needs loads of exercise, he goes out for about 3 hours a day and needs to run, to keep him on the lead the whole time is not an option. I feel like I can't go out and left him off the lead in all the nice places we go, in case he is naughty and won't come back. How can i improve this situation.
  I should also add that he is not aspecially food oriented, and sometimes does not even eat the tasty food bits i give him when he comes to me.

I really understand how you feel :rolleyes:

We have a golden (1 year old) his re-call used to be great but once he hit 11 months old it became non existent :rolleyes: 

Fortunately when he does run up to people he never jumps up and where children are concerned I'm especially pleased about that.  But as you mention other dog's toys he loves and totally ignores us until he decides he wants to return - which I think is very dangerous, so we have now gone back to basics and we are using a long 30 metre training lead and we are not going to let him off until we are confident he will come back when we call him!  I'm not sure how long it will take though but hopefully not too long as like your dog he doesn need to do some free running!

Maria :)

I'm not sure if you've previously stated you've got one, and I can only advise what we've  been doing and the relative success we're having, but we're using a long line (I imagine only  properly these days:rolleyes:  - you can but learn) so whenever our GR decides to throw a defun we always have a way to reinforcing what we want her to do. I never really understood exactly how to use it before but the way we use ours is by not calling her when we know she'll ignore us untill we can stand on/pick up the other end. Even if she's up to no good, we won't say anything or do anything until we're able to back it up. Invariably it means that sometimes she gets away with something when she's really far away but at least we're (now) not teaching her to ignore us when we do.

The beauty we've found is that where before she'd dodge us,  run off etc , she now increasingly forgets that she's on the line (with harness) and lets us get close enough to take control of the line.

The difference in the dog that I was wailing about a month ago is remarkable and she'll come back about 90% of the time. We're working on the rest.

If he's not interested in the food (and I'm really sorry if I'm oversimplifying) but couldn't  you have a ball/frisbee and every time he comes back on a recall you use it to show you're more fun?

Fluff76 thanks for mentioning the harness, we have just had a long lead on his normal collar and I can see now where the harness would be more effective - and also not re-calling him when we know he's not going to return - a mistake I seem to make over and over again :rolleyes:

Luke has a long training lead when he's loose in the park - it works well and gives me confidence that i can reinforce commands if he gets skittish - but-the other day a golden retriever ran up to him, they were playing and the GR's owner appeared - and promptly caught his foot in Luke's long lead - and fell over - whoops-! he was most decidedly not amused...:-(.   ( secretly lol - it was rather funny....)

i too have known the frustration of a dog that does his own thing as a pup mine has loads of freedom to play with other dogs and as he got older and it became less appropriate(hes huge and clumsy and boisterous) i found that he wouldnt come away because i hadnt trained him too, in fact i had taught him the opposite.
so at about a year he had to go on a long lead whereby when he saw something fun i would be able to recall him with treats wthout tugging on the lead, any tugging woud be done by him if he chose to ignore me,it was a lot of work(months to a year!!) but definitely paid off and worth it otherwize he would have been on lead forever and thats no fun.
i also taught him to become ball obsessed with 2 balls.
i still put the lead on when i see a dog that i think he will be interested in just in case.
hang in there, these dogs are sent to try us but thank god for their happy outgoing nature.rather that than a dog that didnt like people etc.

If you really are at the end of your tether, why not ask a reputable experienced trainer for a one to one session? They will come on a walk with you and give you some tips and show where, if anywhere, you yourself are going wrong :)

Try http://www.apdt.co.uk/ for a trainer near you. Hopefully there will be someone who will come out on a walk and help.

Lindsay
x

Carry on as you are... practice recall as much as you can keeping it fun and rewarding.  Gradually the problem will become less as the dog realises you are more rewarding than a stranger or a dog. Slowly you will find improvements until this hardly happens as your training wins through and as your dog matures (lol!..okay that may be a long wait so do speed this up with training! )

There will always be some dogs who are more attractive. sometimes they still home in on other teens because they will play. Sometimes a dominant dog will attract them..I think to show submission or rise to the challenge depending on your dog. If you  see a dog who will be attractive either put your dog on a lead or in a sit then give a release to play as though you are giving permission to play. Wait until their is a gap in the play before you reward your dog. Reward lavishly. Even when it goes pear shaped  finish the event with success so if you had a problem do a recall or two even on a lead and lavish with reward to emphasise that the recall is wanted and is the best reward ever and not the unwanted behaviour.

I used to distract him by playing with him with a ball,and he is great at fetch if no-one else is about but he now takes the toy and runs up to children with his own toy, and again they often throw the ball etc before I can tell them not to.
I was thinking one thing I did to help with this with my last dog who was like this  was to get a ball on a rope and put it on a longish line and play with it like you would play with a kitten..swing it round run away dragging it dodge the ball to make it hard for the dog to get...it gets you puffing too though!  And when the dog gets it gently draw the dog nearer to you and play a game of tug to make your hands fun to the dog before asking for a give and praise and repeat. Lots of  'Whhoo wheeee whooo hooo' too.  After a while you can just drop the ball and tease the dog to bring the ball back to your hands to pay tug but dodge away and play hard to get. Then reward with the game. To change it from the concept that fetch is about running to get the ball..but more about the fun in bringing the ball back to you.  Because you have the ball on a rope you never loose control of the 'trophy' and the focus is always you. 

Thanks for the replies so far.
I am already starting to use the long line like this again, but on the collar, can anyone tell me why i need to get a harness for it? So far this has been good, but he really does seem to be very aware when the line is on, and i certainly haven't tried it in any of his 'naughty places' yet, have simply kept him on the lead in those places -(at least he is not learning to ignore me there).
The idea of the ball on a long line is a great idea, and might well work for us, I'm going to get that sorted as soon as I can.
I was wondering about the further training to end on a positive even if i did struggle to get him back - i wondered whether that might make him just think, ok i'm going to get another chance for the treats and praise, maybe i won't bother going back straightaway - or don't dogs think that far back. (I know when we were told by our puppy class trainer not to let the dogs get sticks as they are very dangerous, we had been playing with sticks, so every time we went to the woods he had been going for sticks, so i told him to drop every time he picked up one, and gave him praise plus treat, i then started to realise he was picking them up and looking at me so i would go through the routine and he'd get the treat. I had to just shout 'aa' at him every time he picked one up, and now he is much better about sticks.)

hes a smart boy, but just imagine the day when he sees another dog and looks at you for his treat instead of running of to the other dog, it will come.

The harness is to prevent injuries if the line gets stuck on something or stepped on. If their neck is jerked hard by the line it could do a lot of damage.

I was testing a long line on my Dobe just in the garden one time. Thankfully I did have it attached to a harness but I dread to think what would have happened if it had just been attached to his collar - a gardener climbed up on the other side of the fence to look over at some tree roots and called out hello to us :rolleyes: My Dobe launched into a top speed sprint barking manically, hit the end of the lead and winded himself quite badly as he slammed down onto his side. He didn't seem to have suffered any damage other than being winded and a bit shocked but goodness knows what would have happened to his neck if it had been on the collar...I had awful thoughts afterwards of his neck literally being snapped. Never did use the long line again as he has a habit of sprinting after squirrels and I could see the same thing happening with him hitting the end of the line at top speed.

i never used a long line because i knew that i would get burns on my hands or hit the deck as he bolted of, but a 6 foot lead instead that i could keep a good grip on.
all situations are different and depend on the sort of thing your dog does.
i tied mine up to a park bench once to use the loo and a dog darted past him, he went to give chase, hit the end of the lead and flipped backwards hitting his head on the bench.
there are no easy solutions. just got to find what works for you,

The line we ise is very wide and soft - and just stepping on it (the harness which takes out the energy too) is enough to stop a 28kg pooch her in her tracks.

I originally had a very thin long line (went for price over quality :rolleyes:) and both my husband and I got bad burns on the inside of our fingers and it would simply slip from under out feet when we tried to stand on it....

Where did you get the wide soft line from?
I only saw the thin ones that burn your hands in the pet shop!

It's a Company of Animals product (the one that does Halti's) and it's very lightweight and soft, and I use it with a Mikki harness (as that one seems not to rub her arm pits at all.) You can google it and get the brand website, or any number of internet resellers sell them. :)

Thanks for that, I've ordered from them before so will have a look :)

The DIY stores sometimes sell something suitable and they sell the lead fasteners too.