Able is now 17 weeks old. Last week he went for his “real” off-lead walk, with no long line.
We’ve been “walking” at Knottingley for several weeks now. These are not really “walks” in the exercise sense of the word – at this age he can get all the exercise he needs in the back yard. They are chances for the puppy to explore new things, and for me to work on his recall in new, very distracting locations. We don’t go very far on these walks – under a kilometre – and after every 60-90 seconds of exploration, I call Able and we play together. We usually do our first little bit of walking alone, and then I get my older dog Rik out of the car to join us.
The first time I called Able while he was eating sheep poo, he ignored me so I walked up to him, took him by the collar and removed him from the sheep poo. I got him to do a hand target, then I let him go back to his sheep poo.
The second time I called Able while he was eating sheep poo, he tried to trot off with it in his mouth. I stopped him (gently) with the lead after one stride. The poo fell out of his mouth and he couldn’t reach it. I waited calmly and quietly through a little puppy meltdown, until he decided to come to me so we could have a game.
The third time I called Able while he was eating sheep poo … I was running out of daylight and the zen-ness required to train a puppy, but he didn’t want to get back in the car. I picked him up and popped him into his crate and we drove off.
We have dealt with other distractions as well, of course. Able has made good choices with most of these – to come when he’s called, so that we can play a game and then I can release him to explore the interesting thing again. Sheep poo appears to be his absolute favourite thing, so I have only asked my puppy to come away from it about once a week, in situations where I knew I could physically remove him if he wouldn’t come. The rest of the time, I do my best to avoid the sheep poo, and if he does start eating it I just leave him until he’s done. Blergh – but it is counter-productive to call a puppy when you know he isn’t going to come.
And that brings me to last week. Able found a sheep poo within the first 30 seconds of our walk. He pounced on it, I called him – and he turned his head and came back to me. We had a big celebration with a tug toy, and then I let him go back to his sheep poo. He continued to make excellent choices every time I called him – so I removed the long line and he got to enjoy five minutes of freedom (with some recalls mixed in for fun, of course). Then I popped him back on lead and we played “can you sit on a stump?” while another dog walked past. We finished off with another five minutes of off-lead fun.
My goal with Able is that all of our walks for the first year will be “training” walks, with cheese and tug toys and games. The ratio of training/playing to actual walking will gradually change over the year, so that he gets to explore freely for longer periods of time, but I’ll always include a few recalls in his walks, perhaps for the rest of his life. If I want a reliable off-lead recall, I need to reinforce my dog for lots of off-lead recalls – so I’m building that into our everyday life.
My previous two puppies were allowed to run off-lead from a young age, often with a group of older dogs. They both learned bad habits and had some scary and frustrating moments. There was the time ten-month-old Toad spent quarter of an hour chasing a goat through the scrub while I screamed at him to come back. At eighteen months, Spring’s best effort at a recall was to lie down and stare at the other dogs while you walked up to put her back on lead. We took her for a walk after a show once and she did her lie-down-and-wait perfectly, but we couldn’t actually find her in the dark for quite a while! I have decided that I want a less stressful dog-walking experience with Able.
I am so proud of my super-clever puppy and our awesome relationship, which is officially stronger than sheep poo!