[Fluff] (update) walking a high prey drive dog off the leadDog Talks

So maybe a month ago I asked for advice about training my doggo off lead and trying to teach my turd of an S/O that dogs don't get to prove themselves.... They have to be trained.

I understand that it might not work for everyone, but we agreed on a few changes.

1. I introduced a whistle for recall, one doot for hold up wait, two doots to come here.
2. I asked a local farmer if I could use a specific field to train my doggo (it's enclosed and at least a mile from anything), they aren't using the land at the moment so he can't destroy anything.
3. I bought a 30m horse lead, this was to practice recall while still being able to grab him if he wasn't listening
4. We changed the old bottle of rocks technique (to distract doggos when they are being naughty), to a children's cap gun. As we found it doesn't work too well on grass. It doesn't frighten our dog, but it's loud enough to get him to snap out of whatever he's doing.. Like chasing birds.
5. Combining a flirt pole and treats for recall to make us more exciting to come back to.
6. Compromise, we do not walk him off lead anywhere else but that specific field at the moment. Never at night. We have to drive there or walk over an hour, which means no more drunken walks with the dog off the lead.

I did consider the use of an e collar, as our previous dog was deaf and we used to use it with the vibration settings, but I didn't think it was necessary without trying at least the basics.

So far it's been rinse and repeat since I posted, we are up to 90% recall, but sometimes he will have an initial chase of a few birds. We are nowhere near ready to be in a public space, but it's nice to see him running around.

When we do try more public spaces we're going to use a soft muzzle (mainly so he doesn't eat crap that the kids leave around the park) and the horse lead until we are comfortable enough to let him off fully (if we even can).

Submitted October 28, 2020 at 09:40AM by SmallandBitey https://ift.tt/35Gbocm