Sounds to me like the perfect way to make your neighbors think you are bipolar.

I am familiar with the pressure-on/pressure-off training from horses, but what you described here sounds like BS to me. For that matter there are a lot of people out there spouting 'natural' training methods that are set up like this...

When all else fails... stick to common sense...

I've been using pressure with my BC when she violates known commands. For example, she's in a sit/stay, she stands up, I go to her and get real close (applying pressure) until she's back in her sit, then I back off (releasing pressure). From what I understand, BCs tend to respond to this kind of pressure because this is how they move sheep, so it's something they understand.
But this sounds like a misapplication of pressure to me. Seems like if you want your dog to come TO you, you don't apply pressure that will drive them AWAY from you.....just doesn't make sense.

Wow! That is bizarre!!

Shouting 'imprecations' is my favorite part! I did that the other week at all the suitors that my young female has attracted with her first heat. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

This is a new one for me but I do know that many herding dogs trainers are very old-school using compulsion with a taping stick. I started in herding dogs as a kid using techniques I could find t the time. One of them was to teach the dog the value on not being about to escape my correction for flanking and make them return each and evry time they hit to hard. This was done by a tap and corner method with some yelling to get the point across and in time the dog would back off on the first yell or know he would be taped and cornered for his over aggressive behavior. It was in a closed pen. I know a guy who won my states and Nebraska’s herding trial championships for a few years when he was actively competing and see if he has any thoughts on this.

I am with Maggie: “shouting 'imprecations' is my favorite part!”

I have to laugh at myself some and some of the things I did in the past concerning dogs. While I never considered anything I did abusive per se I sure did yell a lot at my farm mutts back then..yet..they did learn and became consistent so I yelled a whole lot less later. Still it is funny thinking back on some of the things a person experiments with until you find your balance.

Well, it sounds crazy to me.

I think the best way to teach the recall, is to never let the command fail. Instill in the dog that it must come everytime, no matter what. This is achieved with a long line, building distractions, until pup is reliable. Also if you are pretty sure that pup will not come once off lead, then don't give the command (instead of calling "come", use "let's go" etc). You are setting you and the dog up for failure. Walk to the dog and retreive him (then back to the long line, because you stopped too soon).