Chasing Footballs

[Ed Mottershaw]

I have an 8 month old Border Collie. She is from working stock. She is sweet natured and not destructive or wild. When i let her off the lead she always looks back at me within the first 10 metres. 
She knows her recall but is not great at it yet. We live in an urban environment but with lots of green space available, a fairly large wood is on are doorstep. So she gets more than enough exercise. 
There are a couple of issues i need help with. 
1) She cannot resist the temptation to chase a football. Nothing i do yet can tempt her away. Food or toys are not sufficiently exciting to distract her. 
2) In a similar category to the above, she desperately wants to chase motor scooters and motorbikes. Of course she is on a lead so can't get at them. Nonetheless i want to stop her from doing this. Very occasionally she might chase a jogger or bicycle, but her heart isn't particularly in it, and she easily comes away from either.  

All help will be gratefully received.
Ed Mottershaw  

[D'Elle]

Welcome to the BC boards. I am not clear on under what circumstances she is insistent on chasing a football, but since this is a problem just resolve it by keeping her away from footballs or any place where people are playing with them. Later, when you have trained her as I suggest perhaps you can apply the same training to footballs, but don't try to do too much at once.

Just in case you need to hear this...........Until her recall is rock solid you should not ever allow her to be off-leash. Every time she gets away with not coming when she is called back undoes your recall training and teaches her that she can get away with ignoring you. If  you already know and are doing this, never mind.

The attempt to chase motor vehicles or people moving fast is a serious problem, as I am sure you know. I would suggest that you  do self-control games when you are at at home and do not walk her in any area where there will be the things she wants to chase.

When walking her on leash, in areas where there are no such things,  teach her to stop and sit calmly for a two minutes so she knows what it means when you tell her to do that. Heavily reinforce her success with this using treats she loves.  Work up to this slowly. At first she only has to sit calmly for 5 seconds. Do that until it is solid, and then try 8 seconds, and so on. If she doesn't hold her sit calmly, drop the length of time back down to the precious level and work there longer.  At no time should you attempt the training in a busy area with many bikes or people. All of this time needs to be in a place where she will not see the things she wants to chase. This is important because you need to set her  up for success, and if you try to train this while she is highly distracted it is setting her up to fail.

  Then,  when she can sit calmly at your side for 15 to 30 seconds,  take her out to a place where very few bikes or joggers are likely to be, and if possible as far away from the road as you can get. Keep  your eye out and when you see or hear something like that coming your way immediately have her sit and be calm. Treat, treat, treat while she is sitting. If she insists on getting  up and lunging toward the vehicle, turn around and walk in the opposite direction.  By then the object of her chase has passed, so continue until another one comes. 

Only when she is solid on sitting calmly long enough for the person or bike to pass should you take her anywhere that there may be many of them.

Others here may have other ideas and tips, maybe better than mine. Keep in touch and let us know how it goes. I for one am always interested to hear the progress (or lack thereof) in the training people are doing.