Thread: Dog getting out to far.

Hi guys,
So when i'm walking my 11 month old GSP down at the park she has a bit of a habit of getting out to far away from me. I'd preferably want her no more than 20 to 30 metres in front but she sometimes puts on the burners and ends up 100-150metres in front in the blink of an eye. When she has stopped I can whistle her back in and she will come but when she is at full stride it is hard to turn her. Is there something I can do to teach her that she has to stay closer to me (10-20 metres or so)? She is fine on a long rope so I can stop her but once its off she starts getting to far out.
What do I need to do to fix this? Teach a turn or stop command and if so how?
Any help appreciated.
Cheers.

Hey Luke,

With my GSD I played "hide and seek" from a young age. That is, hide from him when he got too far in front of me. He's always shown interest in me so this constant hide and seek had him always keeping an eye on me. I have a "away" command that means he can go a little further.

I'm not sure if this helps now that I've re-read it.

At the moment we are working on a send-away with a stop. It's small steps but we've actually started with a recall with a stop to kind of get the practice. This is how we're doing it:

1. Dog in a stay (we like 'down'), I walk backwards and have a small mat or something of a different surface to what you are working on, just infront of my feet.
2. Recall but ask for a down onto the mat when dog reaches the mat. Reward ON the mat. This builds value to stopping only on the mat.
3. Do this over and over and keep moving your body and feet further from the mat.
4. Only once you can bet 100 bucks that the dog will stop ON the mat, reward after a recall off the mat and he reaches you.

Key points - if you go too far too soon and reward at your location and not the mat, you'll get a dog that will tend to creep forward from his stopped position. You can fade the mat by using a towel and as your dog gets more condifent with this exercise, keep folding the towel into a smaller area. This is also really handy because if you go down to the park which is a higher distraction area, you can lower your criteria by making the towel larger again and being closer to it.

To start on a down or halt in a sendaway, this is how we're approaching it.
1. Ask for the position you want (down in our case) then release and reward but throw the reward away from yourself.
2. Keep doing this over and over. The dog will tend to 'down' where the treat is being thrown and thus building confidence with commands at a distance.

Key points - use a hard treat that is easy to find when thrown remember that dogs have difficulty generalising at first so practice in lots of different locations and on different surfaces.

Uhhhhh what else do we have. Going back to using the mat idea.
1. Walking at a heel, stop at the mat and ask for a 'down' (or whatever behaviour you want).
2. Mark and reward, keep practicing.
3. Do the same as 1. but start to move forward (if you use 'stay', say that before moving)
4. Try to build until you can be running, ask for a down and you yourself continue running with the dog solidly in a down.

All these things should help to eventually build to a sendaway with a solid 'put on the breaks'! From there you can add your recall or 'walk' (to walk slowly, not run or lunge forward). Fade out the food rewards, fade IN the voice or whistle commands. Waiting the dog out is the best way to get them to figure it out themselves and they are most likely to repete the behaviours again - for example if you are doing this last exercise and you stop, ask for a down, and those beautiful brown GSP eyes look up at you, totally clueless, she will eventually figure it out/get bored/feel like laying down and at that very moment you can mark and reward. She's more likely to try that behaviour out at again at the next mat compared to if you physically pushed her into a down. (If you did the latter, she'll mostly likely figure "Oh okay when we get to this mat, I just wait quietly for Dad to push me a bit, no big deal" and she'll have difficulty transitioning to putting herself in the position of a down when asked at a distance. Same goes if you continue ask over and over without the command being followed. Soon asking your dog to 'down' becomes 'downdowndowndown' to them, not just 'Dad asked me to down four times, I should probably do it now.'.)

I hope this helps, it would be interesting to hear the comments of fellow dog owners out there as I have had no experience with hunting or farm dogs (their jobs, not their breeds!) and all my methods if you can call them that are totally self taught through a bit of pysc research and the good old world wide web.

Good luck, Luke!

Thanks for the reply, definately gives me a few things to think about and put into practice, will give them a go when its not raining!!!

Oh also, we have only been doing this since last Monday and Jet can do all of these activities in any mildly distracting location (other dogs playing 50m away, birds flying, people walking 20m away, a child kicking a ball 20m away etc). We have been putting in about 40min practice each day but broken into two halves with frequent breaks. Jet is nearly two years old and quite used to this amount of training.

I'd suggest starting short sessions with your pup, maybe 5min max if she isn't used to it. You could probably have up to 5-8 of these small sessions in a day but keeping it short and sweet will keep her interested and remember to change locations and circumstances to avoid training getting boring for both you and her.

Be prepared to have a very tired puppy from all the brain work

No worries mate, one day I'll figure out how to be good enough to run my own dog training thing for a crust..maybe haha. Chuck up some pictures of your four legged running machine !

I train her most days (well try to!), so will add these things in and see how we go. She knows all the basics at the moment, like sit, stay, down, heel and come. Just got to start adding in more things now.
Here are some pics:

She seems to have a good head on her shoulders then! Shoudn't be too much to add some extra commands then. Pointers aren't really too into chasing as a breed anyway but does she just stay by your side when you are shooting or is she out in front a bit? Do you need to prompt her to play statues or is it a natural thing when she sees game?

I remember a long time ago when I worked at a warehouse for a toy store and some dude always ordered a shitload of caps (for a cap gun) and I thought he was a bit nuts - he eventually explained to me that he was conditioning his gun dog by shooting caps and making those noises when it was food time. Brilliant eh. Is your girl pretty bullet proof (excuse the pun) when it comes to loud noises, gunshots, all that good stuff?

It's raining here in Wellington today too, we had a big day training yesterday (did some bite work as well as the normal obedience) so rog is off in his doghouse enjoying part of a cow's leg. Day off me thinks

Nice looking bitch , where did you get here from if you don't mind me asking . It's a tough nut to crack gsp s ranging as they do love to run , and the difference between in range ant out is about 1 second . Very young dog still so you are on track with training every day . I've got the same with mine and I'm not sure of solution but have gone back to basics . Also training him to quarter as my theory is the dog needs to think about what I'm telling him , instead of him just running willy nilly in what ever direction he chooses,. This seems to have helped . Another thing which I do with my dog is have trained him to heel on PSSssssssssssst !!! For in the bush when he is stalking and gets a bit to eager works well .

Yeah when I am shooting she is at heel or sometimes a little bit ahead (1metre). I don't really need to do anything when she see's an animal she will just stay next to me and watch it, she hasn't pointed at an animal yet but she points birds in the back yard. Yip from a young age she has been fine with loud noises, she doesn't mind the gunshots at all, mind you I did get my rifle suppressed for her hearing. She definately has the natural ability and has a great nose I've just got to put the time in.

Originally Posted by Munsey

Nice looking bitch , where did you get here from if you don't mind me asking . It's a tough nut to crack gsp s ranging as they do love to run , and the difference between in range ant out is about 1 second . Very young dog still so you are on track with training every day . I've got the same with mine and I'm not sure of solution but have gone back to basics . Also training him to quarter as my theory is the dog needs to think about what I'm telling him , instead of him just running willy nilly in what ever direction he chooses,. This seems to have helped . Another thing which I do with my dog is have trained him to heel on PSSssssssssssst !!! For in the bush when he is stalking and gets a bit to eager works well .

I got her from a guy just out of Tirau. He uses his dogs for his job. How do you train a dog to quarter? In the bush I click my fingers if she is getting to far out and she will move back in or just whisper heel.

Munsey I love the "Psssst!" idea!!! Awesome.

Quatering still work in progress , don't no if I'm the right person to instruct you , there are heaps and heaps of books out there . Maybe someone can recommend a book

A lot of people advocate hide and seek... I personally don;t go the method at all. I try to build trust in a dog, not give it the impression I'll bugger off at any given second.

Luke S all you need is a turn command... very easy to teach with a long line but you have to include the body language when you teach it too... which is just a change of direction. I'll elaborate more when I've finished the article I am doing.

I agree, Ruff, I see no merit in it at all...I want to be a confident leader for my dog...and when you base your leadership on the puppy trusting you, you are not going to play games with him...

I wouldn't say my dog doesn't trust me, I've just found that it is now his job to know where I am rather than me down at the beach yelling "Jet! Jet!" endlessly because I've lost him I do see your point though. I'm interested to learn how to put a turn on command or directions on command etc.