We took our first no-lead walk in the woods today, on a 2 mile trail system behind our house. Only had to nick her twice. Her heel (we actually say "with me") performance devolved into trotting back up to me and then meandering off to sniff at stuff some more. I didn't try too hard at that, just a pleasant hike, not boot camp! We only use the collar for "come" right now so a couple of times when she didn't respond to "with me" I gave her "come" and then had to nick her. Once when lagging behind, once when she went haring off up the trail. Worked both times with no loss of attitude, in fact she had so much drive on that she would come booking past me and I'd have to call her again to finish up the evolution with a "sit" (we always finish up with a "sit").

All in all it was arguably much more pleasant, for both of us I'd say, than the long lead. No big distractions, though. No other people, or dogs, or kids, or (drum roll, please...) deer. We'll be going to see some friends in Maine soon. They have a trail system on their property and a couple of dogs, too. It will be interesting to see how she makes out with that level of distraction.

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Good for you scott, I think it's best to do the recalls with no distractions first and then go place with additional distraction, so you are on the right path.Good luck in Maine!

Hey Scott, I am reviving your old thread. Really interested in knowing how Miko is doing. I read through the whole thread and learned some new things. I just recently bought my 14 mo old Boxer an e-collar (1st week of conditioning), but I'm thinking I should build our bond EVEN MORE before any stimming. We play a few games to build her drive and she follows commands in an awesome manner during play, but I also got the e-collar for reinforcing come if we are out and about someday.