Originally Posted by
TuMicks
This may sound strange coming from me or any field person, because... what do we do? We take all the collars and leashes off our dogs and send them out to retrieve game birds on wide expanses of land. Theoretically, there's nothing we could do if they took off on a whim. But they don't... they return to us with the birds because we'll send them out again and they want that more than anything else they can imagine.
But in spite of that, I would never let my dog off-leash except inside a fully contained building or under those hunting/competition circumstances. I wouldn't do it on a nature trail. I do NOT go to dog parks. I wouldn't do it anywhere in nature where they could put their nose down and just go. And I have a good recall. A GREAT recall. The BEST recall.
We say, don't go off leash except in a very safe setting (i.e., not around cars and stuff.) But if you're not prescient, how do you know which circumstances are "safe"? (As an aside, there was a tragic case of a fellow who came very close to losing four precious labradors in a very safe, very large wooded area far from all traffic. Except he didn't know about the farmer who had put out anti-freeze soaked dog food to kill coyotes!)
So here's the rule I go by... out of control is ALWAYS unsafe. And out of sight is ALWAYS out of control. Unless we're at a hunt test, my dogs always have an e-collar on and they are never out of my sight.