Venturing further and further away off lead?

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Jericho

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Our 7 month jack Russell girlie has been an absolute star, is amazingly obedient and eager to please and has a perfect recall (touch wood!!) and as of yet has never failed to come back when off lead to call or whistle.

My problem is that when we go in the woods which is her favourite thing ever she is starting to really venture out of sight, chasing squirrels and just jumping through the undergrowth and generally having an absolute ball. I love seeing her so free and happy and I can trust her to come back whether we call her or of her own accord ( you can tell she is just coming back to check I am still there) - she is never really out of sight for more than 15 seconds but this is starting to increase and the distance she ventures further and further away.

She is brilliant with other dogs and if anything is a little people wary (there is no way that she would go near enough someone to be stroked) but obviously it is not good if she is not within sight for numerous reasons so i want to get on top of this before the venturing too far away becomes too much. On the last walk I felt she went too far/ too long, called her back, made a big fuss of her etc but then put her on a lead for 10 mins and then let ber off again but called her back when j felt she was too far away.

Does anyone have any tips as to how to deal with this situation? She is quite a timid dog generally so I like to do things which increase her confidence and this undergrowth hopping seems to be really helping her so I most definitely don't want to keep her on a lead all the time.
 
If she really does have great recall and responds every time you call her, would something like a bell attached to her collar help to increase your confidence in her? At least then you'd have a better idea of where she is. :)

Some dogs have a naturally larger sort of hunting radius than others, my childhood JRT would seldom be in view on walks but I only ever had to whistle and he'd appear as fast as his (stumpy) legs could carry him. Obviously this is only sensible if you're fairly rural and well away from livestock.

Current dogs have a hunting range of probably more like 50 miles and no recall so they stay on lead. :p
 
I have my 10 month old fella on a long line (about 10m) anywhere where we have not been before or have not been too many times (lots of sheer drops around here!!!) and both on and off lead, when I recall him (which I do many times throughout a walk, *especially* if I can see he is getting interested in a scent - you need to grab attention BEFORE they go off hunting) or he comes back of his own accord, he ALWAYS gets fed.

It is a system you might like to use, or use a part of, but I feed my pup out of my pockets, so take part or all of his daily allowance and feed him from my hand any time he executes a behaviour I like.
I use something high value like raw chicken mince (delightful, I know, but I want recall, and it's just an old bodywarmer!).
So instead of breakfast then walk, it is walk, loads of food from pockets for heeling, recalling, sitting, etc, and then if there is any left he can have that when we come home.
So it is always, recall, he comes, (I use a clicker) good, food.
It is a good system for imprinting on young puppies, behaviour that you like.

You can also use a whistle (I have a Whizzclick clicker/whistle with a wrist strap, which is fab) which is more attention grabbing than a voice sometimes.

He tanked off on me at the beach the other night and just made it to the road when I caught up with him - I grabbed him, did not say a word, put him in the car and took him straight home, we had only been out for about 15 minutes. Rightly or wrongly, he has been recalling beautifully ever since :p
 
Dylan started bogging off.
I went back to socialisation classes to use a stable secure enviroment, and he stopped getting dinner in a bowl for a few days, it all came from me.

He soon figured the idea, its great to have a intelligent food driven dog, he would do a handstand if I trained him for a bit of braised kidney, I am trying that chicken tomo CC. My pockets already have a fishy primula cheesy smell about them from Teal :) Really need to start agility with Dylan now, he is being so much fun to train (cant do schutzhund and hes not a pure breed :( )

Oh hes also recalled with a whistle 3 pips on a 210.5
 
My youngsters are currently taking off quite a lot. On their own, they're better, but there isn't always time to do them separately. They don't really care about food when out :( Bear was gone for three hours a few weeks ago. He only seems to do this with the OH :confused: The first two dogs I had went wibble at about 18 months and we re-trained from scratch: I'm hoping these two are also just going through a phase as big dog and his brother did. They're very keen to do longer walks than I want (have been probably over cautious while they're young and cos of Zak's HD)

I do what CC said, very frequent recalls and I go crazy with praise when they come back. Bear responds well to this and won't go off again til he's had his fuss. :)
 
Thanks for your replies. She has been a bit better the last few days, I think because on the day that I posted my original question she scared herself by 'losing' us for a few seconds. She recalls to a whistle as well and found that she immediately responds to that which is good. The bell is a great idea (although she won't thank me for it as won't be able to sneak up on any pesky squirrels ;-) ). I always take treats so will make them higher value and increase the praise. We also did some non focussed recall at puppy traing yesterday where you just let them bimble along sniffing the ground or whatever so that they aren't actually expecting a command then recall so that should help. It's not that she doesn't come back as she does without fail (so far) just that I am scared I can't see her!!

CT wow three hours - that must have been horrible, makes me worrying about 30 secs out of sight seem a bit trivial.
 
Jericho said:
CT wow three hours - that must have been horrible, makes me worrying about 30 secs out of sight seem a bit trivial.
Click to expand...

I was fortunately oblivious and at the yard:o. I didn't see my phone til I was leaving where there was a series of increasingly desperate texts from the OH culminating in the 'I've got him', very terse one!
 
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