My rescue has gone from no recall at all last summer, to an autumn full of absconding, to minimal slip ups since new year. There are still very few places l where I let him offlead, but in our usual very large field he is fine and this field is incorporated into most of our walks. I will typically have him offlead for at least an hour a day. We've worked hard on recall with the river on one side of the field and the wooded area on the other side and I've been increasingly confident with it for some weeks now though i still watch him like a hawk. It has made walks so much nicer!
So far so good, I've been really proud of both of us. Until about a week ago. He suddenly taken to shooting off into undergrowth and ignoring me which is depressingly familiar. I associate this type of undergrowth with foxes (thick brambley stuff with runs and tunnels in it). But he's had weeks to shoot off into this stuff, why now? Is it that foxes are starting to smell particularly foxy at this time of year? It's the only explanation I can come up with. No one told me recall might be seasonal!