john landry Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 I take my two BCs – Alice and Lili - several hours a day walking the paths running through the woods surrounding my home. They are free to roam but must come back quickly on recall. And they do. They also use the trails to race (Lili wins most of time) and again, they respond quite well to my recall. What I’m having trouble succeeding in is getting them to stay close to me (when I think that the nature of trail requires it) : 1) I want them ahead of me, 2) by no more than 5 feet. I don’t want them to heel, I want them to walk slowly by my side. If I say « stay », well, they do! Which again is not what I want. Any suggestions? (I don’t have that much experience in training dogs - one of the reasons why I joined BC BOARDS - but I have loads of free time and mountains of patience.) John Landry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1sheepdoggal Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 Try this. Its just like teaching the heel, only instead of right next to you, its 5 feet ahead; Get a six foot or 30 foot lead, depending on how far you will allow them to go out. Allow the dog out as far as you want her to be. When she puts tension on the lead and trys to go further, give a couple of tugs, and say the word you want to use as a command and put her back at the distance you want her at and dont allow her to go further out or put tension on the lead. Keep doing it that way, till she instinctivly knows she cant go further without correction, and then start dropping the lead and saying the command. If she starts to get out of the zone you have set, step on that lead the second she starts to move off. Be consistsant and make sure youve got your timing down. In other words, dont allow her to get 5 more feet ahead before you correct, no more than a foot and she should know/be told she went wrong. It will take some time to get them solid on this, but if they already know how to heel, they should get the jist of this soon enough as well. Its the same thing as the heel, only the distance has changed. You may want to teach this to them seperatly, until they both get the hang of it, as if one breaks, the other will probably follow. Also I would suggest giving them a new command for going out to what ever distance they want, when you dont want or expect them to be at the specified distance. I tell mine, "take a break" and they know they have free roam. If ya really want to wow your friends, teach them commands of 5 feet, 10 feet and 20 feet, using those distances as the command, then bet your friends you can send your dog 20 feet, no more no less, and make a little lunch money! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bo Peep Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 With young dogs, I've always put the leash around my waist, that way they can't travel far. If you start out young, you'll end up with a good dog after all. However, Bailey is over 50 pounds and can WAIL me, for this I use a choke chain, with good results and she is heeling nicely. One little "correction" a slight tug- and she looks at me and says "OK, Mom, I'm following you." I give her the good girl thing and we continue. A bit of cheese works wonders. Of course she is way too FAT for that but WTHeck. I would take your dogs out one at a time. I do mine. They are perfect, yet......when I take them out together- you wouldn't know they had an ounce of training on them. I had Usher on a sit/stay which he normally wouldn't break for any reason, but I went to my Mom's house next door- he IS a service dog- (alert) so I really can't blame him on that break. I would recommend one on one training and then go for two on one. JMO. Dianne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afrancis Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 I've trained Skye to either "stay close", this corresponds to within about 5', and if she is running ahead of me and I don't know what's coming I tell her to "be careful" -- this is especially handy if there is a wild beastie in the distance. I have used this latter command with large dogs, snapping turtles, snakes, and even a fox when walking in the woods. To get her to make the association, I started to use it when I could see that she was approaching something carefully already, to which I applied the command in order to reinforce it. And in terms of the "stay close" command, I use this often with a "no, come back -- stay close" if she starts to get too far away from me. I have also trained her with hand signals to stay on one side of me or move to one side of a path if, for example, a snowplow or ATV is coming past. But I agree with others that attempting this with two dogs at once is pretty well impossible -- esp. if they're playmates. You'll have to take the time to train them separately. But then, didn't you say you have "loads of free time"!! Ailsa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nancy in AZ Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 My BC Kit always wants to play scout and run up ahead on the trail. For a long while after I brought her home from the shelter she'd run up a ways and then run back to me, always maintaing visual checks on me. Boo has excellent recall (from people, bikers and other dogs. Rabbits...not so much). One thing that I've found to be very effective with no nagging is when Kit starts to get more than 25 feet ahead, without saying a word I'll turn around and head back the opposite way on the trail. When Kit realizes she is now lagging far behind me she races to catch up. A couple of times doing this maneuver on our hike and she tends to be more diligent about keeping the distance between us shorter. I've also taught her the "wait" command and she'll stop where she is until I catch up with her. I just don't want to wear out her recall by calling her back to me continuously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted April 3, 2008 Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 My BC Kit always wants to play scout and run up ahead on the trail. For a long while after I brought her home from the shelter she'd run up a ways and then run back to me, always maintaing visual checks on me. Boo has excellent recall (from people, bikers and other dogs. Rabbits...not so much). One thing that I've found to be very effective with no nagging is when Kit starts to get more than 25 feet ahead, without saying a word I'll turn around and head back the opposite way on the trail. When Kit realizes she is now lagging far behind me she races to catch up. A couple of times doing this maneuver on our hike and she tends to be more diligent about keeping the distance between us shorter. I've also taught her the "wait" command and she'll stop where she is until I catch up with her. I just don't want to wear out her recall by calling her back to me continuously. This is the way that I would approach it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john landry Posted April 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2008 To 1sheepdoggal, Dianne, Ailsa, Nancy and Kristine... GRATEFUL, THANKS. John Landry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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