I take my dog for long off-leash walks on snowmobile trails or snowshoeing through the woods. I am usually engaging her with games, commands etc and she is "with me". My recall issue comes when she sees a squirrel, rabbit, deer, feral cat, etc before I do -- and she is already in gear and in pursuit.

I am unsure if she has responded to my "leave it" command at times or has returned simply because the animal has retreated up a tree, into a hole or simply gotten out of her sight. To clarify, the pursuit is a matter of seconds/a minute and when she returns to me I reward her with a treat/toy/good girl.

I am not sure how to implement an e-collar in this instance or if I should at all?

Want to add - if we are at a new location or somewhere that I anticipate encountering "critters" I will have her dragging her long line and I'll grab it if I see tracks or sense she is starting to alert on something.

Thanks,
Katie

I'd strap on an e-collar, when she takes off remember to remain completely calm. It's natural instinct to quickly yell at the dog when they do this. You need to resist that temptation, calmly reach for the e-collar remote, give a normal recall command like you would any other time, then when she ignores it use the e-collar at a level high enough for her to not ignore it while in drive. Then reward when she listens.

That's what I'd do anyway.

In the situation you describe above, if I know she's not gonna listen to a recall, then I wouldn't give the command at all, wait for her to come back, then when you see she is coming back to you give her a recall command and praise (no ball/treats) when she comes back to you.

If you yell at her to come to you and she ignores you, and then also treat when she comes back, you just taught her "ignore me when I call you, chase after the rabbit, then you'll get a treat when you come back."

I second Mike's suggestion of an e-collar for this - it has worked well for me. I hike a lot in the mountains with my GSD off-leash but always with his e-collar on. It has a pager and I have trained him to come to me when he hears the beep - more effective than yelling for him if he wanders too far away from me. Chasing wildlife or range cattle around here will get a dog shot, so I "wildlife-proofed" him early on pretty much as Mike described, by using a high enough level of stim to really get his attention when he took off and ignored my "leave it" and "come" commands. Now he knows that if he chases deer, elk or anything else he will immediately get his neck fried, and he's really good when we are out in the back country.

Thanks for the responses Mike and Sarah.

 Quote: mike j schoonbrood

I'd strap on an e-collar, when she takes off remember to remain completely calm. It's natural instinct to quickly yell at the dog when they do this. You need to resist that temptation, calmly reach for the e-collar remote, give a normal recall command like you would any other time, then when she ignores it use the e-collar at a level high enough for her to not ignore it while in drive. Then reward when she listens.

Mike, that is pretty much what I was thinking, but then I read a post by Roni the other day that made me think again. The thread was a more controlled situation than I am talking about -- but still it made second guess myself...

 Quote: roni hoff

I would only correct the dog if he knew how to respond. For instance, if the dog is leaving you and you call the dog, dog doesn't respond, I wouldn't just stim the dog. I would work the dog on a long line, allow the dog to make a wrong decision, correct with whatever collar you are using and then make sure and give direction with the long line. The dog can be in such drive that he truly cannot "hear" you and the distraction can be so strong that he can loose his head. If the dog doesn't know what to do, the correction is then ABUSE. IMO

It would be difficult to "set up" a wildlife situation. But if I am interpreting Roni's post right -- after a high enough stim to get the dog's attention, it's my job to "throw a party" in order to get the dog back to me -- right???

Katie

I do know and respect that the board owner does not utilize escape training or Lou Castle's ecollar training methods but I do believe his method for "crittering" to be very effective.

Basically, in a controlled situation, the dog is given a very low level correction for even looking at the target animal. The dog is corrected before the drive has a chance to engage.

My own experience with an offlead SAR dog is that, once the chase sequence has begun, even a high level stim may not produce the desired results and may shut down some dogs. I have used the technique with one of my dogs and it worked very well for her. I had tried, before this, giving a high level correction while the drive was engaged, and it did not stop her (I am sure a stronger collar than I had at the time may have).

She was trained using a goat but has not chased deer, or other wild animals since this training.

To me this is not really any different than correcting the dog aggressive dog for breaking a heel command to look at another dog instead of waiting for the dog to go into a lunging frenzy.

Katie,
I would say yes, do whatever it takes to make it clear to the dog that having stopped chasing the critter now it needs to come back to you. Continuing high levels of stim when the dog is just confused and/or shut down would indeed be abuse, IMO, and would achieve nothing. Nancy's suggestion about setting up a training situation where you can use low levels of stim to pre-emptively convey the message that critters are not even to be looked at is excellent. I did try something like this when I first got Dillon, using a friend's horses, and I thought we were doing OK. Clearly I hadn't proofed it enough, though, because a couple of weeks later we were hiking and he took off towards a moose. I zapped him hard and then jumped up and down making encouraging noises to get him back to me (fortunately the moose just stood and stared at us like we had totally lost our minds). After that Dillon got the idea - we had a few more incidences of him locking into a stare at distant deer or elk and me saying no very firmly, with a follow-up quick nick on the e-collar if he didn't immediately transfer his attention back to me. Now if he starts to look at critters all I have to do is say no - as Nancy says, it is exactly like correcting immediately for breaking focus to look at another dog, instead of waiting until the situation escalates.

Hello Katie,

I know this is not the same drive as when chasing "game" but has worked for distraction with my dog "Bella".

I usually walk with other friends dogs and let them run-a-bout any play as they wish (after a few min. of being controlled as the other dogs play).

At random times I recall the dog, especially when major distraction is going on, like bird, rabbit, high intensity "wrestling", etc. If she does not come immediately, or look and turn to come, she get a whack with the collar (after a second).

If you don't already have an e-collar, you will be amazed at how quickly the dogs respond to it. Just remember to de-sensitize the dog to the collar!! My G.F. tends to keep it on as a "safety-net" and our dog got savvy, I want to just kill her for that. Taken me a long while to break her of the collar savvy-ness.

I believe any distraction helps. I do recall when people kick balls, throw sticks, whatever gets drive up..

Hope this helps a bit..

 Quote: nancy jocoy

I do know and respect that the board owner does not utilize escape training or Lou Castle's ecollar training methods but I do believe his method for "crittering" to be very effective.

You are right The board owner doesn't agree with the LC's methods.

Roni (our resident collar expert and moderator) has her finger in a splint so she's having some issues typing. I am going to call her and get her idea on all of this and will relay it to the board.

I am talking to Roni right now:

Roni's point in reference to Katies' initial post is that if you are unsure that the behavior the dog is showing is in response to your command or is just a coincidence, you shouldn't be correcting at all. You need to clear up any confusion there, on both of your parts.

 Quote: sarah ward

Now he knows that if he chases deer, elk or anything else he will immediately get his neck fried, and he's really good when we are out in the back country.

"neck frying" is not really a part of good dog training and I am hopeful that your intent was not to imply that.

Remember, this is an open forum and with so many people still fearful and prejudiced of using the electric collar this isn't exactly the best terminology to be using.