Retriever Rescue

Hi,

I have a 6 month old Goldie, he's lovely, generally well behaved although mischeivious when he wants to be. Very very confident and headstrong, but we dont seem to be able to nail his recalls. He is going through like a flight period where he doesn't want to listen which is hard work for us but i cant let him off lead because he finds everything far too fascinating, grass leaves, blossom petals, other dogs and people and it doesn't matter what we use, his favourite toys various treats, he doesn't come back 100% of the time. We're trying to build our relationship as much as we can so that he see's us as leaders and also more fun than anything else around him but because he is so confident he would rather wander off atm! So he's constantly on his long line when we take him out so that we can control him and reinforce our "come" command if he doesn't come back straight away.

How did you all perfect your recalls? Any advice to help us would be much appreciated.

Reanne

No easy answer as this is a Golden, a happy heedless Golden.

Recalls take patience and lots of time and it may never happen.especially not at his age now.

Does this mean then that with their nature after 6 months of age we'll never get a 100% recall if he doesn't have one already?
I was hoping even if we had to work even harder, we could still get there. I'd hate to have to keep him on the lead all the time.

Reanne

No I meant that you can't expect him to do recalls at his age at the moment. I didn't mean if he doesn't do it now he never will.

Hi Reanne, welcome to the site
Our first Golden, Leigh, we had from a puppy. We had to put in a lot of hard work and have a great deal of patience. At 6 mths old, life is far too interesting for a happy Golden to have to 'do as he's told' Goldens have this thing......."Yes I hear you, but I'm not listening". But they do have to learn!
Does he go to an obedience class? It could help. We found that changing your tone of voice when giving a command did the trick, followed by a reward and lots of praise. Around 18 mths to 2 yrs, she was doing well. Just keep going, You'll get there.

Hi Reanne, and welcome.

Will echo everything that as already been said.
At 6 months, life is still full of new experiences for your puppy. Keep chipping away with your training, believe me, he will be learning. You may feel that he isn't, but along the line it will click into place. They all have what I call, fresh air between their ears. Just be consistant, with what you are asking him, and what is acceptable or not. LOTS and LOTS of praise and a little treat for being a good boy. It's amazing how they come to know the word "sweetie".
Our boy was a horror for quite some time, but I just kept plugging away with the training, and ultimately he responded.
In fact, when he did, I almost fell over!! He had been kidding me all along that he was thick
You'll get there with him. Time and patience will win the day.
Meanwhile, good luck, you will be rewarded with the most wonderful companion, and wonder what it was all about.

Lynn

I do apologise Jan, i completely misread what you wrote!!! Sorry!

Someone once said to me before that it seems that they dont ever seem to learn anything then all of a sudden things start falling into place. I knew puppies were hard work but this has been so trying! to the point where we both thought, "what the hell have we done?"

I have to say though, he is better behaved than some adult dogs i know! it's nice to know that everyone has been through the same. He has not long finished obedience classes but that obviously only lays the foundations, you have to make sure you keep up everything you've both been taught. Cant wait to see the end results when he's older! No other dog has ever made me laugh so much, you gotta love 'em!

Reanne

Recalls and walking to heel!!! Problems with both are to a large extent self inflected! OK, I know you are all saying, “But I never taught my pup not to come when called!” but think about it for a moment.

My aim with a puppy is to try to prevent them from ever realising that they have a choice. Take walking to heel for example. A very young puppy does not need hours of walking so pick the time carefully. Times when you are going somewhere and have other things on your mind, like for example, the school run, are not the ideal! Walking a quarter of a mile to the park, similarly are not ideal because you cannot expect a young pup to concentrate that long. I put my pups in the car, drive to the park and do very short bits of heelwork mixed with off lead exercise. This makes the heelwork fun whilst at the same time giving the opportunity to practise recalls!

But getting back to recalls.

Imagine this scenario for a minute. You are cooking a meal for your other OH’s dinner and are just at the point where if you leave it all your work will be ruined. Just then you look out of the window and notice pup digging a hole in the flower bed. You shout “FRED! Pack it in and come here this instant!” Fred looks at the window, sees nothing so goes back to his gardening. He’s just learned “Pack it in and come here this instant” is just a noise and means nothing at all!

What I mean when I say my aim with a puppy is to try to prevent them from ever realising that they have a choice is to try to never give a command unless I’m in a position to be able to enforce it. Look at the above scenario, would it not have been better to finish what you are doing then go outside and put yourself in position to be able to make sure you are obeyed. Obviously in a dangerous situation you MUST try, but in most cases things are not dangerous and a few minutes spent tipping the scales in your favour is no real problem and can pay big dividends later.

Whoever said training a puppy was a full time job was dead right! But it’s only a full time job for a small proportion of their life. Get it right in these early days and sit back and enjoy the rest of their lives.

Regards, John

Thanks John. You have a wonderful way of putting it all in perspective.

That is so true! It only takes a couple of time for them to learn that it is just a noise like you say, and they ignore you all the time!

My Charlie comes in from the garden everytime i call him now which is good, we're just working on when we down the park when there's other dogs and children around. The hard work will pay off i'm sure!

Completely agree with all above. I would just add, in my experience, dont use his name for a recall. His name is so overused in so many other areas of his life he will never be able to distinguish that on this occasion you want him to come to you. I use 'Come'. Some do use 'Here', but I find this too close to 'Heel' so avoid it.

I occasionally combine the 2. Sandy! Come! The recall is the 'Come' command, and 'Sandy' is used to just hopefully grab his attention in the midst of 5 other reckless playmates. Secondly, and especially at this age, the reward must be really enticing! If you have a partner at home, you could start at mealtimes, your partner holding him in one room whilst you prepare his dinner. Only when you shout 'COME' does partner let him go. If that dog isnt sitting at your feet in 3 seconds flat, waiting for you to place said bowl on floor, Ill eat Jans tombola prize at the funday! A usual, loads of praise when giving the bowl. (Do make sure you do 'give' the reward, dont just call him and put it on the floor). Even at 6 months, you'll have the basics of a recall, just dont expect too much too soon!

That i have to say is a brilliant idea using his meals! It's been a few months since i put the post on and now he comes back 99.9% of the time from the garden which is really good. Just need to practice more in open areas around distractions like other dogs. We've just had him castrated so i've not been able to take him out for a run about for a few days down the park so when he's healed i'll be back to practising down the park with his long lead.

Thanks

But how on earth do you get over the fear that they might never come back? They might generally be very good at coming back when you tell them to but at what point do you take the plunge and give them that little bit of freedom? See, alot of the time when he's on his long lead he looks back to check we're still there, if he wanders off in the wrong direction and i say "this way" he catches up with us, but i'm terrified if i let him off properly something will distract him that is far too much fun to resist and will forget about us and run off where we can't get him.

You just have to take a deep breath and unclip that lead. I know just how you feel though. My husband is so much braver than I am and he let Jessica go quite a while before I did - but to see her running free, finding new friends as well as Lily to play with and really enjoying it made the anxiety worth it. It's amazing how they don't go too far to begin with. The lead seems to give them a feeling of security so it's quite easy to do a recall and reward for coming back quickly. Now she ventures much farther afield and is getting a little bit cheeky, just coming back far enough so she can make sure I'm still there and then running off again. She always comes back in the end, knowing that there is a reward waiting for her. We must think ourselves lucky that we don't have Beagles! A dog walking friend has two of them and she has been known to lose them on some sort of scent and then have to wait an hour or so for them to return, despite being able to hear them barking. They have been trained come to a dog whistle but even that can't break through the smell of a rabbit!