Hello all, my 6.5 month old Australian cattle dog has surprised me the last two nights. I live in front of a school, night before last he was off-leash in the field when he saw and gave chase to a small "herd" of about 8 deer. One command he stopped and came running back to me sitting right at my feet. The next night the same occurred, this time with a few snowshoe hare. It has taken me 2 months of training to get his recall reliable enough to go off leash when "prey" is around. Next step is to train him not to chase at all.
thanks for reading.

Awesome!

I know you may at first be in shock that the command worked, but remember to praise, praise, praise and reward, reward, reward if you want those awesome recalls to last!

Great work, and I ABSOLUTELY know how great that feeling is when your hard work shows!

Excellent work!
Now for off lead reliability to NOT chase prey when it's around.
That's basically proofing what you already have and that means back on lead and slooooooly adding distractions. Prey in your dog's case.
You have to find a distance where the dog may be able to see the prey but not get excited as if it were right there. THAT'S when you give the dog a command and reward heavily for responding. If your to close then it will be hard to get any response.
Over a period of time(days to weeks) you will gradually move closer to the distraction. If the dog stops responding to yur command then you've move to fast.
Your basically desensitizing the dog to the prey.
Does this make sense?
The earlier in the sequence of seeing, stalking, chasing the prey the better. That may be nothing more then an ear flick, a head turn towards the distraction. ANY movement that tells you the dog's excitement level is going up. Catch it early and the training will go much better then waiting for the dog to be in all out chase.
Hang in there. your doing well!
Keep us in touch on your progress!

bump

That's fantastic, Aric! We all know how important (potentially life-saving) the recall command is. It's good to hear about your young dog learning to listen to his handler even in extremely distracting situations. Sounds like you're making great progress!

Yes thanks everyone, first working pup I have owned. Very happy with the progress thus far. While on leash we can walk right by deer, I will tell him to "watch" he will lock eyes with me and not look away even as the deer run off. As Bob stated I must work on it so that the interest in the wild animals is nonexistent. Very peculiar actually, the amount of wildlife around my house over the past year has increased dramatically. Either way its a good training tool having them around as I am an avid hiker, and where allowed my dogs are off leash. Nothing could be worse than a dog who runs off 15 miles from the nearest road in pursuit of an animal.