Perfect recall

[Hottesttrikeintown]

I keep reading stuff on here and elsewhere about how you shouldn’t let your dog off if they don’t have “perfect recall”.

I’m just wondering what it means and how you know. My dog was great until about 7 months (he was a rescue and with me from 4 months and wouldn’t go more than a couple of metres from me).

Then he grew in confidence and wouldn’t always come back. So we were back to the lead and basic recall training in house and garden. I let him off again now (10 months) and he’s really good. I mostly recall him if there’s a dog on lead and he always comes back when I call (with decent treats) I still keep him on lead if we’re somewhere with lots of people and bridleways etc.

I guess what I’m asking is how do you know when the recall is solid. For example if we were in a park and someone was having a picnic I’ve not tested it so have no idea if he’d recall. But I can’t test it until it happens which could be too late (and lead to the confrontation i want to avoid!). So how do you know?

I can’t use a long line.

Perfect recall doesn't exist and you can never be absolutely sure. At the end of the day, they are living animals with free will.

Mine will come when called 9 times out of 10. There comes a point when you just have to trust them.

You shouldn’t test recall in different situations, you teach it in those situations and then only have them off lead when you’re really pretty sure they will in fact recall in that situation.

Testing them by just putting them in a situation and hoping they might recall is pretty much setting them up to fail, because if they don’t recall... what happens? They get a nice exciting adventure and do it again.

Perfect recall of course doesn’t mean there isn’t always a slight potential that a dog won’t recall, but basically you want to have trained him well enough and know his reactions well enough that if he’s offlead and doesn’t recall you’d be pretty shocked by it.

Why can’t you use a longline?

There's no such thing as perfect recall - but the idea is to get it so your dog comes back 99% of the time.

There's always a chance they'll ignore you - because they're dogs and not robots, but you just have to keep working at it.

I used a longline with mine as a teenager but he's three now and is off the lead daily on his walks. I can't remember the last time he chose not to come back - and he's a beagle!

Ok I will disagree I think it is down to the environment you are in and the chances of recall.So I do have perfect recall with my dogs in certain situations. They will come 100% of the time in certain situations and I am very happy to have them off lead in these environments.

In other environments if I have control over my dogs which may also include a distance down and stay as well as recall I will let my dogs off lead.

Environments that they may find harder eg in the OP case with loads if picnikcers I would keep on lead.

I walked 15 miles with mine yesterday and most was off lead. I always assume we don't have perfect recall in following situations and react accordingly when anticipating them:
Other dogs which approach, bother and won't leave her alone.... not fine because she'll eventually growl to tell them to go away. Depends if the other dog then walks away or not. If they try to dominate her she'll stand her ground

Squirrels- loses all sense and thinks she can fly. Likely to jump off cliffs etc

Cliffs...as above....what if there is a squirrel....

Children....she's a cute dog and too many children approach and try to pet her. I would be held responsible for her reaction to a toddler squeezing her muzzle.

Traffic...

I also look at what would happen if my dog failed their recall in assessing the danger/wisdom of freedom
My dogs are pretty bombproof with dogs,people,bikes and I can guarantee control there so the can be offlead. Around livestock again they are bombproof, but are still on lead as the consequence of a failure are too high to risk.
On the beach, my recall from rolling on something dead is very hit and miss!!! However, the risk of that failure being dangerous or a nuisance to anyone else are non existent(they only roll, don’t eat), so they can be offlead and if I come across something dead and disgusting, I take my chances

Also... although dogs don’t generalise, some situations aren’t actually things you haven’t come across before.

Someone having a picnic isn’t really a brand new situation, it’s just a person, with food.

I mean, mine hasn’t seen picnics, but he wouldn’t go over to people in a park so I wouldn’t recall him to put him on a lead unless I was planning to pass pretty close by.