Puppy off the lead.

[justgivein]

My DW let our five month off his lead on local land recently .He was great on recall ,she only had chopped carrots in her hand as treats and he played happily with other dogs. I feel a fool after lecturing her on how it was too soon even though he walks to heel great, sits and stays fine.
He has been chased while on the lead a couple of times ,ended up on his back and straight into a fence when he has reacted wildly.I still feel like I can't let him off for fear of him running away or being attacked even if my DW was with me.Is it me,am I being too cautious.I'd love to let him off but I just couldn't do it.Apparently his breed is loyal to its owners ,does this help.

Omg this is so horrible 😟I'm so sorry! I would have strangled that trainer

It’s a bit late now, but puppies should be off the lead, unless by a road, from day 1.

Lead training should only be for short bursts, not to get from A to B and they should be mainly carried/driven to their off lead place to run and play.
When tiny they instinctively stay close and you can work on a bomb proof recall at this age as they will always come to you if you move away from them.

get the book total recall to help you.

I see a lot of Border Collies who spend their entire lives in leads because people haven't trained them to recall. It makes me so sad - a Border Collie should be the spirit of freedom. They are designed for running free.

You need to get them off lead as soon as possible.

We have a JRT cross and he's always been good off lead, we did lots of games to encourage recall such as getting him to run from me to dd (you need a high value test though, carrots would definitely not cut it for our dog!)

Other games include giving a treat whenever he looked at me and then building on how long he retained eye contact for. Lots of training around tricks (sit, stay, lie down etc)

JRTs are clever little dogs generally.

I'd encourage him to ignore other dogs and avoid too much interaction with other dogs at this point.

Thanks .I certainly will research more on recall before the day I let him off.I have been training recall in our garden,house and on a very long lead with treats which he is doing well at,also ignoring people and dogs training is going well after incidents when he leaped at people.I will go for liver sausage and the long lead trailing when I first let him off.
I have had a couple of bad experiences with earlier dogs first time off the leash ,a two year old Shitzu that bolted straight for a busy road and an adult brown lab rescue that just disappeared over a hill,it took a very long time to get him back. Two Yorkies and a sheltie were perfect but that was years ago .Unfortunately one was killed by a rottweiler that was off the leash when my mother in law walked him and my puppy being attacked recently haven't really helped.But it has to be done because he's big and strong with loads of energy and my wife said he loved playing with the other dogs and he was great with recall with chopped up carrots that he loved. But high value treats is the way to go ...thanks for great advice.

I've had a couple of bad panic attacks tonight and it's been many months since last ones so I'm going to stop commenting on the thread ,it has really helped on how I will approach it all though so thanks for all the help.

I see a lot of Border Collies who spend their entire lives in leads because people haven't trained them to recall. It makes me so sad - a Border Collie should be the spirit of freedom. They are designed for running free.

I walk a border collie who is extremely nervy and noise sensitive. I do let him off as I know him and he will stop when asked, but every time he hears a loud noise - he freezes and bolts.

Luckily I can catch him in the "freeze" stage and he will sit and allow me to put his lead on but some days he's in flight mode from the minute we leave the house - so yes, he does end up stuck on the lead a lot as I'd much rather that than have him bolt and end up in the road.

There may be occasions when a particular dog needs the safety of a lead - although I am sure you will agree that that isn't ideal because it doesn't fulfil their demands for physical and mental exercise as well as off lead does. But the dogs that I am talking about are fine in themselves, but their owners have never trained them to recall. So many dog owners think that dogs "pick up" training as they grow, rather than put in the time and effort.

I agree that dogs should be able to run free where possible but I also think the majority of owners don't have anywhere near as much control over their off-lead dogs as they claim.

I'd rather see a cautious owner with a safe, on-lead dog than a reckless owner letting their dog charge around with no manners.

Of course some dogs do have great recall and manners and are fine off the lead, but my experience as a dog walker tells me those dogs are hugely in the minority!

The first couple of times let them off somewhere really secure as if they haven’t really had the chance to run before they can go a bit loopy. Mine goes off lead every day so it isn’t anything special. Long line attached to harness and a good rule of thumb is to call them back 9 or 10 times for a treat or a play and then put them on the lead and then let them off again.
you want to avoid them thinking that coming back =lead and lead = end of walk.