Hi all. Can anyone give me tips on how I chould have better handled my dog's first encounter with a groundhog?

My 18 year old went w/Gunnar into our backyard to play. Gunnar was off leash as our yard is fenced. Unbeknowst to us there was a groundhog in the middle of the yard who did not see my dog until my dog was practically nose to nose with the animal. He's an intact, 16 month old male who loves anything with fur. So my fear was for my dog, not the animal. Gunnar stood there trying to smell it and make friends! The animal was arching its back and making a very strange clicking sound. I took it to mean he wasn't enjoying this in the least <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> !

Question: I called my dog to come. He listed immediately , however, that was when the groundhog took the opportunity to try and run (he's not stupid) and that is what caused my dog to stop listening to me and go back to the groundhog and go nose to nose with it again. This occurred 3 times. Each time my dog listened to me until he got distracted or overcome by the desire to chase the fleeing groundhog. Since my dog was about 20 feet from me, it took several steps on his part to get to me and each time the groundhog started to run the moment Gunnar was a few steps away. This caused me to never have the chance to grab my dog.

On the third run, my dog chased the groundhog to the fence, watched him run under our fence and then it was over.

If that was a rabid raccoon, snake, a skunk or worse, my dog would have been in deep trouble and I'm very unpset he didn't listen to me.

What would you guys have done in that situation, both during and after? Should I have corrected my dog. He didn't have his e-collar or his prong collar on at the time so I'm not sure how I could have corrected him.

Any suggestions/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Judy,
I definately think some sort of correction should've been given for the first in-fraction. If the dog was too far for the correction you (IMO)should've given a verbal no, as soon as the dog turned back to the groundhog. If that didn't stop him you should've physically gone to get the dog and brought him back to you.
In one Ed's articles he says that if the dog doesn't listen immediately, do not repeat the "come" command but go physically and grab the dog and bring him back to where you had originally called him from. I think the article even stated that you should be giving corrections all the way back to the dog.
here's a quote from the article I am talking about:

A point not to forget is that the correction is actually a series of corrections all the way back to the point where you originally were when you first called the dog. Also this process can take days to accomplish. Do not try and rush through this in one or two training sessions. Then when you get to the point where you are outside, you always have her drag the 30 foot line. When she is 100% with the line on, you can shorted it to 10 feet, then 3 feet, then a foot long line attached to the collar.
He also mentioned that once you have the dog back to the original spot he was called from to wait a few seconds then praise the dog profusely. Be firm but fair.

Giving the command 3 times and not correcting the dog for any of his refusals just might have now given him the idea that if he's chasing a groundhog, the come command doesn't need to be listened to. If he's not close enough to grab, walk to him until you are close enough. Even if the dog turns to come to you while you're walking towards him, he should still be corrected because he didn't listen right away.

I am sure other people will have a different opinion...or maybe a better suggestion.

---

Don't complain....TRAIN!!!

having spent quite a few yrs hunting these critters with dogs, I can tell you that a groundhog will do a lot of damage to a dog that doesn't have the "heart" to quickly kill it.
I would have bet that if you walked up to your dog for correction, that would have put the hog in fight or flight before you got the dog. Depends on how cornered the hog felt.
E-collar + critter training is what you need here.

Also depending on your dog, walking up to him may have given him more nutz to go at the hog with his pack leader giving the go ahead (just approaching in our eyes).

John

ok, now I am a bit confused by people saying they wouldn't correct the dog for not obeying her command.

Why would you not correct the dog for not listening?

If you don't, are you not just imprinting in the dogs mind that "come" is an optional command that he doesn't have to listen to unless he wants to? Even if it was just this one time and there was a groudhog involved, she gave the command 3 times and each time he partially did it, then chose to turn and resume the chase.

I am just wondering what is the reasoning behind not correcting the dog for this behaviour????

If he was 100% on the recall on a long line, even with distractions...then once off didn't listen, are you saying you should let it go with no correction???

I am just trying to work it out in my own mind for future reference since my dog seems to have a fetish for squirrels.

I think I instinctively I knew that. I purposely kept my distance. Having a dog nose to nose with the groundhog was probably all the animal could handle. I didn't want to throw me into the mix. For his sake and mine!

Good to know that about groundhogs doing some damage. Before reading your post, I had groundhogs at the bottom of the damage-to-my-dog list. Kinda had them in the same category as cats. Sort of a "Maybe they could inflict some damage but" kind of feeling regarding the groundhogs. Now I know.

I agree that the e-collar would have been fabulously helpful here but it's just not practical for me to keep it on him all day long, every day on the off chance he's going to do something stupid in my house or my yard. Thanks to my fence and my dog, I never have critter run-ins. I guess this groundhog was a little on the dense side.

To the poster that mentioned lessons after the fact, I think that's a great idea. Find something out of the ordinary that distracts him greatly and run through a lesson or two a few times a week would probably go a long way here.

Wendy, I couldn't correct him at the moment because he was not within my grasp and as I stated above, me going closer to the groundhog to grab my dog might have made things really ugly.

Mike, you brought up a point I hadn't thought to mention. On walks I have always been able to get my dog to ignore animals he sees nearby (squirrels, rabbits). Even off leash (with e-collar) no correction was ever needed because he'd start to show interest, I'd say "lass es sein" and he'd know to leave it.

This was the first time an animal was in Gunnar's yard (his territory) and that may have made it just too difficult for him to listen to me.

So, that brings up another question. Was he doing the right thing by confronting the animal if the animal was in his yard? What if it was a punk, creep, stalker, stranger, man in the yard? I would have expected and then praised Gunnar for his choice to confront the offending party (in this case, a bad guy).

How does a dog differentiate between what strange things are bad to confront and what strange things are good to confront? What if it was a brown bear that wandered into my yard and I was alone and had no reasonable weapon and place to go? Should my dog confront this thing? I'd love him to jump in at this point and help me scare away Mr. Brown Bear instead of waiting for permission from me to investigate and assist!!

My dog is not Schutzhund trained. As wonderful a dog as I think he is, there are limits to his abilities. What goes thru the mind of the dog when he's confronted with a situation in his own yard? How do I compliment and not confuse the situation?