I have looked at those in the past, and I will have a look again at your links, but they will only find the dog when he is errant, won’t help with persuading him to come back when called instead of haring off into the landscape.
In his earlier days with us I even resorted to 2 way radio, yes really. I had already bought a pair of cheap ones for Fran and I but stopped using them because she could not get out of the habit of pressing the button to listen and releasing it to talk.
Anyway, I attached one radio to his harness and sent him on his way after checking it was working. I then called him at about 100 metres but he still ignored me.
I seriously believe some dogs will just never accept recall. Mine only come when I call if I also wave a dried chicken baton treat.
Have you tried waving a chipolata? After a few times he might catch on - Name call = yum! Might help to ring a bell or blow a whistle if he’s on the run.
I went to a dog trainer with ours for a while. She had at the time a dog that came back in his own time , for example 2 hours later at the beach. (And she a trainer!)
We introduced our pups to training at 12 weeks. First thing the trainer said when we told her we had two girls from the same litter was that we would never achieve recall because they would bind to each other and not to us.
They did run away after pheasants a couple of times. Worst four hours of my life. Now we have a garden surrounded by a high wall. Still no recall but always within sight of a sausage.
Our little poodle never runs away, loves charging up and down footpaths if on a rando, but if she spots a tarred road or a car ahead, she stops and waits to be put on the lead. Interesting contrast to our previous Maltese who was essentially a pretty bimbo (tho’ much loved and missed).
Our dog is a creature of instinct. He has perfect recall for 99% of the time, but an irresistible smell of carrion half a kilometre away can break the elastic that binds him to us. We just wait. We stay in the same spot and he will return, but can take hours.
(We also play big ben chimes on the phone as that is his dinner time, so if he’s started to get bored with his smell he’s chasing it can bring him back.)
Yes, I buy Knacki BBQ sausages, cut them into inch sized lumps and fry them in olive oil riddling till black and crispy. He loves them and every time he comes to me, recall or not, I give the long/short blow on the whistle as he gets the treat. But they still don’t trump interesting smells on the ground or in the air, might search for something else, a well rotted dead bird perhaps? but how would I get it in the bumbag, and would I want to?
At one point this morning I spotted 2 Buzzards circling high over the field and for a moment I wondered if he had found something dead and they were waiting for him to go away, but they soon cleared off themselves.
I’ve had deaf dogs, blind dogs and daft dogs, but never anything like this one. Thinking cap still firmly on. Perhaps a recording of another dog barking, he usually rushes out of the house to that sound, but that might be simply guarding the territory.
Perhaps a recording of another dog barking, he usually rushes out of the house to that sound, but that might be simply guarding the territory.
