Hello, I am a newbie to this site and very glad I found it.
My question is: How would I go about training my 17 mos old GSD to come with a whistle?
I assume the whistle sold by Leerburg is not audible to humans?
Appreciate any comments and info on this subject!
Thanks and good luck..Pete Shaw McAlpin, Fl.

If you mean whistle with your mouth, I would whistle to my pups when I wanted them to come in, this was a litter I had, at feeding time I would whistle and call"babies"every time I came out to feed, pretty soon I didn't have to make any other sound other then whistle.They would come so fast and would stumble over one another to come to me.They thought it was feeding time every time but at times it was and others simply to get them to come over.You can do it with adults, I do with mine when I have them running in the desert, I whistle and they come running, again i had used that method at feeding time.I moved with the exercise to giving them treats when they came. But now I can whistle and they come running...it works..

Thanks for the info!
What I have in mind are the dog whistles that are not audible in the human range, but only to dogs.
I appreciate your reply though, nice pic of your crew! Pete

What work have you done up to this point on the recall? Other basic obedience training?

Peter, the whistle Leerburg sells IS audible to the human ear and it comes with a warning not to use it in the house. It can be extremely loud if you want it to be, but I use it 3 different ways:

1. One long, loud whistle to mean STOP RIGHT NOW.
2. 3 or 4 short, sharp whistles to mean come back to me now.
3. 1 short whistle to mean I am standing on the porch and it is time to come in the house now.

Many short repetitive blasts only gears them up, so if they are running away from you, they will just keep on going – only faster. One loud blast usually stops them in their tracks and they turn around to see where I’m at and what I want. When I have their attention, then I give the short whistles to get them back to me.

Backtracking, to teach all of this, make sure you have lots of yummy treats – string cheese, hot dogs, chicken breast, etc. – and reward them for even blinking when they hear the whistle. Blow the whistle, hold up the treat, and then give it to them right away. I even tossed the treat to them when they first reacted to the sound. Just move further away each time, and remember to reward, reward, reward.

One word of warning – that whistle can get on your nerves and the dogs’ nerves, so do very, very short training sessions. Perhaps even one or two whistles per day to start.

By the way, the whistle is one of my favorite tools, and I don’t think I would be happy using one that I couldn’t hear. I firmly believe the way you use the whistle is what produces the different reactions from the dogs, so I would want to hear what I was doing to be able to gauge how well they were doing.

Good luck.

Thanks Jan & Elaine,
Well I should have given a lil background on "Holly".
I got her in Jan. from another household. She was 13 mos then.
I started clicker training right away and to date she has learned to: sit, stay, down, lift up her paw, halt while walking and then sit. She has also done a few days of tracking on our 4 acres and was 100% on tracking wife to hiding spot each time with no problem. She also has done several article searches
and was 100% on finding items under leaves etc.
She also is trained to sit and stay while door is opened at house or car and wait for "OK" to enter or exit both.On or off leash.
Today walking on drag line, she and I came within 20' of squirrels and she obeyed halt and sit, then walk away with me in another direction, a first and major accomplishment! She loves to watch and will take off after them if allowed!
I have had her come to me and on command and several times she got off leash (my fault, too loose) and she did come back when called after she ran to whatever got her fired up.(Either squirrels or a lady walking her little dogs). I then got a Gentle Leader head collar and have been amazed at the control over pulling. She now walks at my side and behaves really well.
Didn't mean to ramble here. Anyway,I need to have a good recall which I seem to have neglected to train well for and hope to accomplish with lots of practise now. I would like to use an inaudible whistle for that, or possibly an electronic collar.
Thanks for listening! Pete Shaw
I found

Out of curiosity, why is inaudible so important to you?

Anyway, if you are planning on a long distance recall, you probably would not be able to use a truly silent whistle. Although dogs do have superior hearing, the very high frequencies do not carry as far distance wise. (That's just physics, sorry.) They can also be easily overwhelmed by more powerful sounds.

I have a whistle that adjusts from very high, nearly inaudible, frequencies to what could be considered the more traditional whistle. The manual that came with it said that you would have to use the louder, lower frequency setting for distance work and the higher frequencies could be used closer in. (It's ACME brand, just if you were curious.)

In short, I think the goal of a silent recall using a whistle just can't be done over long distances. I may be wrong, anyone with better info can correct me-please do!
You could do it over very short distances, but that would be useless if your dog gets out of range before you can react.

As an afterthought: Over time your dog will likely also begin to loose her very high frequency hearing abilities, again just something that happens with age- happens to all of us, actually (including dolphins, which really messes with their echolocation abilities, but I digress). Just another thing to consider when using high frequencies. (I don't use my whistle as a sole command in the highest frequencies for this reason.)

OK, I'm done. :-)

 Quote: Peter Shaw

Anyway,I need to have a good recall which I seem to have neglected to train well for and hope to accomplish with lots of practise now. I would like to use an inaudible whistle for that, or possibly an electronic collar.

I should have explained myself better in my oh, so very long, post above.

I use the whistle alone for inside-the-fence recalls (I have a verrrry long back yard), but I never go outside the fence, off-leash, without their e-collars on. I may even then just use the whistle, and it may be all I need, but no matter how good I think their recall is, I’m not going anywhere without their e-collars on.

Nope, just not gonna do it.

OK Leah and Jan,
Thank-you very much for the info.
Well, the inaudible part was so my neighbors would not go bonkers hearing a whistle even though they are all on 4 or 5 acre
lots here.
I appreciate the info on the whistles and believe at some point I will get an e-collar as you never can be 100% sure they won't stray with the right stimulation!(such as a deer, rabbit, or fox or squirrels which we have around here).
Thanks again for taking time to send that info.
Best regards,
Pete Shaw McAlpin, Fl.