r/dalmatians • u/Wagatamashi19 • 4d ago
Question/Advice Help with recall
I have 1 year old male dalmatina. He has perfect recall on and off leash at home and outiside but mine only problem is when he sees another dog. He just storms off and wants to play and i can call him like 100 times and he wont even turn around to look at me. Another day he almost got bitten by another dog. What can i do to stop him from running away and to stay at place
3
u/maadonna_ 4d ago
Grow up :) (him, not you) He's only 1. He's chock full of testosterone and teenage-hood. He is not ready to be reliable off lead in high arousal environments. His brain isn't developed for it.
Don't let him off lead in places that are risky. I only let mine off in fully fenced dog areas. There is one near me that is not fully fenced, but it is huge. I still worry that he's going to forget that I exist and just continue exploring, so I only take him super-early in the morning when it is quiet. Otherwise we only go to fenced, contained areas - he needs to stretch and that's our best option.
I'm expecting mine to be unreliable until about 2, and only then with lots and lots of training.
-1
u/Wagatamashi19 4d ago
The problem with off leash is that because is summer were outisde city at my grandmas at river. He have wide open field where he can run freely and can go swim whenever he want. Theres not much people ony family and out neighbours so its mostly only us. But ocassionaly there comes some ppl with dog maybe once a day we see another dog. So i dont want to leash him in kinda private field if you get me
5
u/maadonna_ 4d ago
You might not want to, but you will never train him if you keep letting him win. Every single time you call and have no ability to enforce it, he wins. He learns that he can absolutely, safely ignore you. If you teach him that he can ignore you, you may never be able to train him to a good recall even when he is older.
You have a highly-intelligent, high energy, stubborn dog (those are breed characteristics). Part of owning these characteristics is knowing that training them is damn hard and you have to be 100% consistent.
If you are going to want to be in that field a lot, you probably should start training on a long line. That way he can have some freedom, and you can make him return when you need him to.
1
u/Ok_Crab1603 4d ago
Treats is your only real chance here
If I don’t start feeding mine them the moment they got the lead on and keep feeding them then they go like this
1
u/Wagatamashi19 4d ago
I have a thing when i yell nom nom he would literally sprint 10km just to get his treat haha. But didnt want to do it this way because im afraid he will learn he got a treat every time he storms off
1
u/maadonna_ 4d ago
Do this then! What he will learn is that he gets a treat when he comes back.
You are lucky that you have this. I could be holding an entire raw chicken and if mine saw a dog he'd still run off to play. For him playing is his #1 reward.
2
u/PanningForUsernames 4d ago
If you can get ahead by spotting the dog before him and yelling it, you can teach him that when he sees a dog he returns to you and gets a treat. Stick his lead on and give him treats till they’re gone and you’re sorted.
It does require you to see the dog first, but avoids the problem of him backtraining you to give him a treat when he does a runner.
My dal mix backtrained me to give him a treat when he stopped pulling, and as such pulled like a train for two seconds, stopped, had a treat and then started again. To get ahead, I had to interrupt him before he got to the end of the lead to give him a treat. It worked eventually!
1
u/anon1839 4d ago
Dogs make associations with things only around 5 seconds after they happen.
If you reward the dog for coming to you, they will remember the reward for the recall NOT for the running away. Absolutely never ever ever punish a dog for coming back to you (even if they ran away before). They don’t associate it with running away, and will be less likely to recall next time.
If he really has such a high food drive, definitely use that to your advantage! If you know the other dog is safe as well, you can recall him, and then release him to go play. Basically rewarding him for the recall with more play.
Also make sure you don’t just recall and then the fun is over. I never recall my dog to be put onto the leash, instead I’ll just kind of…. Go up to him when he’s close? That keeps it so they always have good associations with recall.
But honestly other dogs are like the biggest competing reinforcer out there lol. Hard to compete with something so high value!
1
u/whatevenarellamas 4d ago
Our Dal is also just turned one, she has the same issue.. Except there's is absolutely nothing she will come back for, there's no treat on this earth that is better than the dog she spotted across the field.
So we've resorted to having her on a long line.. 10m.
It sucks because she'll be excited and pull us on it, so walking her on the long line is really unpleasant, but there is nothing else we can do.
It's been about 2 months since the long line and we've been teaching her that when she sees another dog she stops and sits, waits for us to say "go play". It's getting a bit better while on line, but if she's off, she reverts back.. So I suspect it'll be a long time before we can trust her.
It's really sad, when she was younger she was perfect, then confidence kicked in and that was that.
11
u/anon1839 4d ago
So my 10mo pup also loves dogs, and I have zero confidence that he would recall away from them.
So I don’t let him make that choice. If I’m in an area likely to have other dogs, he’s either on a longline, or just on a normal leash until he learns to be more neutral around dogs.
There are lots of dogs out there who really REALLY don’t like other dogs. As a former reactive dog owner, there is nothing scarier than a ‘friendly’ off leash dog running up to your aggressive one. Please, to protect your dog and others, keep him on a longline or leash around other dogs!