I love seeing Rory run in the field!! Bird dog doing bird dog things!! You said in the tags you had different training and priorities with her vs Mav re: offleash running like that. What kinds of things did you do differently with Rory to be comfortable having her offleash at a distance with reliable recall?
I was writing a whole novel but really it boils down to this chart. Under the cut because it's (vertically) long.
In short, it's just as much about what I didn't do with Maverick as what I did do with Aurora.
(Edited to add: I am extremely fortunate to live in the prairies where the kind of visibility I need is easy to find. Use my experience to inspire your own training if you like, but don't use it as a recipe. I have my own goals and my own priorities and those are likely different than yours.)
Maverick:
🔵 Supremely confident from day 1
🔵 Came home in August (extremely good and exciting time for outdoor adventures)
🔵 Prioritized specific sports behaviours over foundational building blocks like engagement and cooperation
🔵 Learned bad habits from my older dog at the time (prey drive > recall)
🔵 Was indiscriminately prey driven. If it moved, he wanted to kill it.
🔵 I phased out treats too fast and didn't want to use an ecollar or long line
🔵 I focused on "social media dog behaviours" (think like walking extremely close to me on trails) and got frustrated when we couldn't meet these rather than meeting my dog where he was at. This created a lot of frustration in our dog adventures.
🔵 I practiced recalls constantly when I didn't have to, making them a tedious behaviour for him. I would recall him 20-50 times a hike for everything from "you're too far away from me" to "I want to take a photo".
Aurora
🟣 Came to me a little insecure and looked to me for reassurance
🟣 Came home in December (a cold and relatively boring time for outdoor adventures)
🟣 I prioritized engagement, cooperation, and name recognition from day 1
🟣 Practiced good habits by walking offleash in the snow either alone or with Pike (amazing recall)
🟣 Is extremely birdy, but is very very focused. She easily calls off deer or people/dogs in the distance because she mostly cares about birds.
🟣 Literally always gets offered a high value snack for recalling or voluntary check ins (I will never phase this out, I will carry chunks of cheese on offleash walks for the rest of her life)
🟣 I never practice recalls if I don't need them. This one is hard to explain, but once Rory understood that long whistle = come back as fast as you can, I don't whistle unless I really need to. I recall her an average of 0-3 times per hike (*based on visibility or wildlife*) and trust her to make good decisions otherwise. I keep my eyeballs on her 100% of the time and choose areas with good visibility, but I don't recall her just for being far away.
🟣 I limit hikes where I have to nag her often (think, in the woods where I dont have a great line of sight and have to remind her to stay close to me) to a few times a month or less so she doesn't start getting frustrated about it.
🟣 I trust the training I put into her and choose to run her in areas with (relatively) reduced risk if she makes the "wrong" choice. I don't nitpick everything she does and I let her make her own choices, within reason.
🟣 I have an interrupter cue to ask her to stop doing something before I call her back (if she's digging a hole and I want her to move on, I use "Rory, enough! Here!") instead of whistling at her.
🟣 I don't force her attention on check ins. If she runs back to me and doesn't want a snack and wants to run straight back out, I let her run back out.
🟣 I have anticipatory cues for the end of a walk so I don't have to recall her when we get to the end of the field.
I want to say that it's nerve wracking to watch my dog sprint at full speed hundreds of yards away from me. I have to fight the impulse to recall her just because she's far away. It's an exercise in trust because I'm always worried about her going over the horizon, or running into a wildlife, or falling into a hole, but it's an important thing to work on if you have a dog that needs that trust to thrive.
Mav and I were a good team, but I never fully trusted him outdoors. I always had my finger on the ecollar buttons ready for him to do an evil and need to be vibrated. It was exhilarating to watch him in the field, but it wasn't really fun or relaxing.
Rory and I built a much stronger foundation of trust (I personally never would have been able to do this if I had more than one dog). She doesn't know any tricks yet, but I'm super confident in her recall and ability to take direction in the field, even when she's sprinting as fast as possible.
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Just a practice session with Borb. He is getting really good with verbal commands and hand signals. Don't worry he got treats afterwards. Lol I love my little shit head.
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The video is horrifically out of focus but today we added a recall game to our practice, and it'll probably be a regular addition. I placed him in a stay, set a treat down at the end of his tail while he watched, walked 30-40 feet away, called him to me, sent him back to the treat, and called him back again. It's basically just a harder version of the recall game I learned at the training club I attend.
Things it teaches:
Impulse/Self Control: He knows where the treat is, but he's not allowed to get it until I say so. There's nothing physically preventing him from getting it other than previous practice. He also knows where the treat is, I'm releasing him from his stay, but he has to come to me first and then I will send him back. This is reinforced by giving him more treats from my hand than what he'd get if he hit the floor treat first.
Recall: Obvious enough, teaches him to come when called even if there's something he wants close by.
Going away from me: An obedience trick, but I may find a purpose for it eventually. Most dogs want to be near their owners and sending them out is difficult to teach.
Indian Street Dogs is a new illustration that celebrates the street dogs of India, in appreciation of the hard work done by individuals and groups to improve their quality of life.
Thank you to Jessica Haltzman from Delhi, The Street Dog Foundation for suggesting that I create a print to show the beauty of Indian Street Dogs. You can buy this print (11″x14″ size, signed, $30) from Delhi, The Street Dog Foundation - proceeds will go towards the rescue work that they do. Link to Delhi Dogs website.
Thank you also to Aditi Joshi in Mumbai whose recall training with street dogs is inspiring and heartwarming. Aditi was my consultant on this poster about the body types and colors of common street dogs, and she pointed out details to me that I wasn’t aware of before. (eg, the half-moon notch on the ears of neutered/spayed dogs) Link to Aditi Joshi’s GoFundMe for Street Dogs
My drawings in this print are based on Jessica’s and Aditi’s streeties :)
