They do say that to get good recall on a dog you have to be doing something more interesting than the dog is doing. I would beg to differ. When my dog Taran is working sheep there is nothing I can do which to her is more exciting. Yet one whistle or voice recall command and she immediatly complies. Her reward is to go and do it again. OK, not everyone wants their dog to work sheep but the level of obedience required is clear to see. She knew nothing about obedience aged 8 weeks but I taught the the basic level then basic plus levels of obedience. Only then I introrduced her to sheep and took her to the next level of training. If you would like to know more about Obedience training with us please follow the link below. https://www.facebook.com/dogtrainingmaeshafn
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This is the 3rd time Willow has featured in a post. Willow and her owners Jonet and Ella came and had six 1 to 1 obedience lessons with us. They came when Willow was 4 months old and had not previously had any training at all. Here, Ella and Willow are training a month after the last lesson with us at the end of October. Willow continues to make outstanding progress. I post this video as an inspiration for others and proof positive if you put in the training time you will be rewarded. Willow is a real credit to Jonet and Ella and they must be so proud of her. But watch this space, I think there is more to come.
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When I take the dogs out for a run, I am always engaging with them. I am always giving them things to do, in return they give me their undivided attention. To them it’s game time. They don’t run off; their eyes are always focused on me. I think of it as reinforcing what they already know. Today, with Jess, it was a wait out of sight and recall on the whistle. With Taran it was wait, release and emergency stop, on the whistle. A potential life saver. We are usually up in Maeshafn woods at various time of the day, if you see us, stop and say hello.
Introducing myself with Willow, a 6-month-old Border collie/ Malamute cross. Willow, comes to us with her owner Janet and daughter Ella, and this is the third of her training sessions with us. She is doing very well having learned how to walk to heel on and off lead, sit, lie down, wait, come and heel. Still work in progress but very pleased with her progress so far, and is testament to the work Janet and Ella are putting in between sessions with us. Here I am demonstrating to Janet and Ella how to put all that Willow has learned so far into a combined exercise. Further training will go forward with a recall on the whistle and emergency stops.
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Floss pupdate.
Been doing some more work with Rachel and her puppy Floss now aged 3 months. They have done so well they have graduated to a place of higher distraction i.e., the big outdoors. Floss is now accomplished in sit, wait and come commands so we have combined those three individual exercises into one and introduced the heel command using lure and visual cue techniques. When Floss could get this 90% of the time, we moved on to heel walking using the same lure and visual cues. These lure and visual cues will be phased out as the training progresses. Floss is getting commands mainly in Welsh as Rachel’s other dog Willow learnt her commands in English when she came to us for training.
Another puppy graduated from DTM last week. Bo the Sprocker bitch. Still only 7 months old but has learned so much in such a short time. It is testament to the time her owner, Hannah, has put into working and training with her. Hannah and Bo have been a pleasure to work with. This happy little puppy works with such Joie de Vivre, as well as real eagerness to please. As can be seen in the video, answering a voice or whistle command, a more enthusiastic recall would be hard to find.
I hope I make a better dog trainer than I do a cameraman, and this might seem a very insignificant piece of video footage, but this is Elsie. Elsie is a 12-month-old very powerful Boxer bitch owned by Nick. When she came to us, she had such bad manners she was a real handful. She would jump up anybody and everybody who came into range. She would chew and pull on the lead. Nick’s hand, arm and sleeve were just playthings. She was lead aggressive and pulled when being walked. She chose to ignore any word of command. Letting her off the lead in the woods where we train was simply out of the question. Nick said of her that taking her out for a walk was “not a pleasurable experience” Over the weeks, we worked through one exercise after the next, repetition after repetition. It is testament to Nick’s hard work and training time that has transformed Elsie. She now walks to heel on a slack lead nicely and understands and reacts positively to verbal and whistle commands. She now has a good recall and is rewarded with off lead time for a run in the woods.
The two most important things the dog needs to learn is the stop and recall commands. To be able to get your dog to stop on command can be a life saver. When your dog learns a solid recall then it can be left off the lead and have more freedom in the knowledge that it will come back to you when told to do so.
Both Taran and Jess have good stops and recalls but I do not take it for granted that they will always have it without practice and reinforcement. In this video, the dogs are reacting to the following commands. Wait, recall, stop and release.
This is jess when she was about 4.5 months old and her first time with sheep so she is on a long line. This was not a training session it was just to see if there was an interest.
