Off leash

[bmathers]

I am pretty sure I posted about this awhile ago, but couldn’t find my post, so at the risk of a repeat...

How many of you let your dog off leash when you walk? I have not yet let Diggity off leash, but this morning as we were walking on a completely empty golf course, I was super tempted. I have let him off there before (months ago) and he ran pretty far away from me towards some houses that I think are completely behind fences, but I can’t tell for sure. He did come back, but it scared me. He is very bold, unlike my previous dog who was off leash at this age. She was much more subdued than Diggity though and was way less interested in other people and dogs than my extremely social boy. I am practicing recalls in the back yard, which he is getting better at, but the distractions are way less than out in the open.

I really want to get him to a point of being off leash when we are away from roads. I want him to be able to run free and get even more exercise than being tethered to me for the whole walk. Eventually, I would like to be able to go mountain biking with him and that is definitely an off leash activity on tight, single track trails.

Is it better to wait until he is older and better trained before letting him off? Or, will it be harder the longer I wait because once he gets to run free, he will be so excited that he will take off?


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[barry581]

I will let Brooks go off leash in appropriate places. His recall is 99.99% reliable under pretty much any circumstance. That being said, I do put an e-collar on him when he is off leash in public areas, but I can't remember the last time I had to nick him when I called him. I also have the whistle I use when we are field training on me when I have him off leash. He has been trained to immediately sit on a single whistle blast, which we mostly doing blind retrieves. I also do this randomly when were are just walking in the woods when he's off leash. He will sit until I call him to me, or I release him from his sit.

On the other hand, Sophie will never be allowed off leash, as her recall is pretty much non-existent, despite years of training. I'm pretty sure it's inherited, as there are 4 other dogs from her litter that I stay in contact with, and they are exactly the same. NO recall. I will let her run with a 25' check cord in isolated areas, letting her drag it along.

How old is Diggity now? How are you practicing recall in the yard? How do you enforce the command if he choses to ignore you? Have you tried letting him drag a long check cord while you are out of the yard???

One of the keys to any obedience that I have learned is once they have learned what a command means, and what you expect, you only give it once, and of it's ignored you enforce it. When I was training recall with Brooks, and I was fully certain he knew what I expected when I said "HERE", I would take him various places around the neighborhood with him wearing a collar and a 15' lightweight para cord dragging the ground. As he was wondering around, I'd randomly call him, if he came to me, it was party time and a treat. If he didn't immediately come to me, I'd pick up the cord, give him a tug and repeat "HERE". When he got to me it was a party and a treat. Every, Single. Time. Never scolded them when they come to you, no matter how baldy they may have ignored you. Coming to you has to be the BEST thing that ever happened to them.

Realistically if I wasn't in public areas with traffic close by, I wouldn't hesitate to let Brooks off leash without the e-collar. For us, it's basically the emergency back-up just in case.

[bmathers]

Diggity is a year and a half now.

I started training him with a whistle and blow it twice when I want him to come to me. For some reason, I haven’t done that training in awhile, but am starting to pick it back up. I blow the whistle twice and then yell “Diggity Come!” and when he does, I give him a treat and a lot of praise. There is a huge soccer field near me and I can close all the gates and let him off leash. He runs around like crazy and then I start calling him back. He is totally free and at times might be 100 yards away across the field. I would say his recall is about 80% in this situation. When he doesn’t listen (most of the time because he has gotten a scent), I just keep walking around and then try again about 30 seconds later and he usually comes. Is this giving the command twice? He definitely expects a treat each time he comes back. I also walk around the field and let him choose to come back to me, which he does constantly, and then he gets a treat and a party too.

I have thought about an e-collar (in fact I think that was the thread I started on this topic months ago), but I haven’t pulled the trigger on that yet.

I haven’t tried a long cord. Not sure that would help if he takes off. That is my biggest concern - that he will see another dog and he will tear off after it (just to play.)

Not sure what else I should do?


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[Annette47]

I let mine off lead on hikes in the woods all the time, but like Brooks they have solid recalls. With Chloe I did use an e-collar when she was young, mainly because she would range very far, very fast and I couldn't be sure she could even hear us calling. Haven't needed it on her in years and years though. The two yellows don't go as far as she used to and have never needed it. It helps that they learned to run off leash with her, so we would call her back and they would come to and get rewarded.

Barry gives great advice on how to train it. Generally I approach this like I approach all of their training. If they are wrong, they get a verbal marker "NO" and then they are shown what the correct response should be (ie "helped" to come via a leash). As with everything I do with them though, if I have to help them, especially if it's something they know how to do and chose not to, then no food is given. To my guys, withholding food is a fairly effective correction as long as they understand why they're not getting it. Usually, if I think they are remorseful, I will give them a second chance (after correcting them by putting them on leash and enforcing the recall, that means letting them off leash again, not just calling a second time), and reward heavily if they are successful. If I feel they are too distracted and don't really care that they got in trouble, then they go back on leash and stay that way for a while. One thing I would add is that I've found it helps a lot to frequently call, treat, and release so they learn that being called doesn't mean the fun is over.

Mine aren't hugely interested in strange dogs or people (deer or rabbits are a bigger distraction) but the best thing you can do is be constantly monitoring the situation to make sure you notice oncoming dogs (or deer or whatever you think will tempt him) before he does. I've found that by watching my dogs' body language I can tell the moment they notice something interesting before they've decided what to do about it (staring with head up and ears pricked, intensely focused). That's the window of opportunity and it might be a small one. Call him over before he decides to run and reward heavily. Then you can also teach him he has to stay with you unless given permission to go say hello. Repeat it enough and he should look to you for a treat as soon as he sees another dog, but you have to a) be more interesting/rewarding than the other dog and b) don't let him self-reward by going to the dog without permission.

[smartrock]

No.

Well, actually, we let them off leash on the beach using e-collars. They also know 3 tweets on my whistle means come to me. We only go to the beach 4 or so times per year so it's not a frequent activity. We try to only go down to the beach when there are no little kids or oldsters, early in the morning when it's mainly adult beach walkers and we try to leash them up if people are approaching. Even so, they will *rarely* run off to say hi to people despite all that, usually targeting people who hate dogs for some reason. I need to be better about practicing before we go to the beach so they remember what that tone or vibration means and I don't have to ramp it up. If they're not reliable, it's my fault more than theirs.

[barry581]

18 months is still pretty young and he will still be influenced pretty bad with distractions. I'd keep him on a check cord and if he doesn't come on the first command, I'd walk over and pick up the cord and give him a pop and re-give the command then. You don't want him to figure out that listening to you is at his discretion, that it's optional. I also wouldn't recall him outside of 30-40 yards at this time. I'd work at that range and as he gets to the point he's responding correctly, then you can start stretching the distance.

When you're training various commands you need to consider distance, duration, distractions. All three of these should be incorporated as you are training. At this point in training recall your main issues are distance and distraction. You can start adding distance as he gets better as range increases. Once you get reliable response at distance, start adding distractions. People, dogs, toys etc that he has to ignore as he's coming to you.

Right now what you want is low distraction, so he's not tempted to run off and will ignore you. Having a long check cord on him will allow you to grab it or step on it to stop him should he decide to take off, and also allow you to enforce your command. At this stage in his training you should never put him in a position where you can't immediately enforce a given command. If you're at the soccer field, and he's engrossed in a smell on the ground, don't call him unless you can give a correction should he decide to ignore you. Once you start giving multiple commands without him responding you are basically teaching him that he can ignore you. I watch several people in my training group do this. They will give the dog a recall command four, five, even ten times and the dog is completely ignoring them. It pains me to watch it. I call it negotiating with the dog, and it doesn't get better with time.

At one time I was pretty reluctant to use an e-collar. But I did a lot of research and they can be used in a manner that is both fair and humane to the dog. That being said, I've seen a lot of people use them in a very punitive manner that is neither fair nor humane to the dog. If you've never used one I would seek out someone to help you learn how to use it. I am a firm believer that an e-collar can be an extremely effective tool to use when training when used correctly. I'll end it with saying that when Brooks sees me with his e-collar he gets all excited and I can't get it on him fast enough, because he knows he's about to have a whole lot of fun.

[barry581]

OH and have you taught Diggity the "place" command????

[kimbersmom]

Kimber had a solid recall. She also loved tennis balls and frisbees, so if I showed her one, she’d come running. We used an e collar to help with distractions.

Stormy is a work in progress. She’s easily distracted and not particularly motivated by toys or even food. If she’s snacking on scat or fence-playing with the neighbor dogs, I generally have to leash her up. On the positive side, she wants to keep us in sight. If I go in the house or start to move towards the dog park gate, she *generally* follows.

DH thinks her recall is “good enough” so he’s not eager to help with recall exercises. It’s one of the harder things to train solo, I think!

[SunDance]

I'd let my two youngish Labs off leash separately in varous parks (with no one around) for a while. No problems. Hershey didn't wander off more than 6 - 10 feet and Honey always came back when called. One day at a more rural park (where people tend to let their dogs off-leash a lot), I decided to test them loose together. Off and call back. Off and call back. Turn coming up ahead and call back before they get to it....nope...around the bend. And gone. Steep hill/thick brush on one side and the river on the other. I'd run to the bend but they were much quicker. We called and called....went to the end of the trail where it met up with an elevated and old train track (we knew they wouldn't have gone up there) and then doubled back. Calling them all the while, asking people we met if they'd seen either one of them. Nope. A mile or so...maybe two...and we were then in sight of the last spot where we'd seen them. There was Honey, waiting for us. Fussed us out like we were the ones who abandoned her. Hershey nowhere in sight. I took Honey on leash and walked out to the road/parking area. A van stopped and the woman driving asked me if I was looking for a Chocolate Lab. Danged dog had gone about two miles across and up that road and was in her backyard, playing with her Great Dane puppies. My guess was that they'd started chasing deer on the hill/brush side and were out of earshot by the time we got close to where they'd veered off. Honey would have come back if she'd heard us.

Hershey was never let off leash again.

I let Danny (and then eventually Sunnie) off leash in my favorite park. Again, when it was pretty much deserted (leashed the minute I saw anyone even though neither dog would go up to people unless called). Sunnie would wander ahead a bit but returned when called. Danny didn't leave my side. One day, a woman and her dog materialized out of nowhere (she'd been behind a building and moving relative to us in such a way that she remained out of sight until she rounded a corner) just as I'd let the dogs off leash to load them up into the car. Both of them took off and proceeded to terrorize her dog. They knew this dog was scared of their noise and he ended up trying to get away from them. I was mortified. The woman didn't care (I sure would have if I were her despite the fact that mine were "just being noisy"). She could easily have been hurt by her dog winding his leash around her, etc.

Never again did I let either dog loose. I know Sunnie was just following Danny...and he'd developed the extreme need to deafen any dog he came across (after a couple of incidents with loose dogs on our lawn/driveway when we happened to be going out to the car or a potty trip). Dan doesn't even get to go out on the front lawn loose anymore (for one thing, he's got a girlfriend 1/2-way up the street...a year old Golden...and if Noel barks, Dan's only instinct is to dash up to her).

Anyway.... Just a long-winded way of saying you're right to question Diggity's readiness to be loose. Good luck.

[Black Labbies]

With Ursa, it depends where we walk - at the park she's off leash, going home from the park she's off leash, (she carries her own leash) but must stay in the "heel" position, near or around traffic, on leash. Opal used to walk off leash quite a bit, but because she needs our support, she on a very old short leash - this leash goes back to the '70s and still works great.