Thread: Dog getting out to far.

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!!!

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:

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 .

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.

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