When did you let puppy off lead?

[foreverinmyheart]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times before. I just wondered when is best to allow a puppy off lead with obviously training as part of this? Is earlier better? Or is too much freedom too soon bad?

I know every dog is different. My puppy is 17 weeks old, his recall has been very good.

Experience, thoughts and advice welcome :)

In dog-heavy areas, as soon as vaccinations had kicked in.
In areas with no other dogs, at about 10 weeks.

At that age, they want to be with you, so it's an ideal time to reinforce recall.

As soon as you want, as long as they are safe and vaccinated. Also top tip. We used to use an enclosed tennis court to practice recall.

@saveforthat that's genius!

I've had him off lead now a few times and so far so good. I'm just conscious of making sure no bad habits creep in or if it's the wrong thing to do. I hear horror stories of puppies 'bolting' because something has spooked them...

From his 2nd walk at 10 weeks. They don’t stray far at first and it’s good to build good habits. He’s 16 months now and he recall is excellent.

From his first walk at eleven weeks. Obviously we had worked on recall at home, but at that tender age they stick to you like glue. It can be difficult to get even ten feet apart to practise recall out of the garden!

As soon as fully vaccinated around other dogs, introducing her early to other dogs was brilliant for her socialisation skills as well.

Similar to a PP, we used an enclosed area in a park (unused boules area) to practise recall.

As soon as she could be out with other dogs. We practised recall in private enclosed spaces before vaccs.

She's now 14wks and is off-lead for at least some of two of her three walks a day (the middle one is just a 5-10m sniff round the block).

As others said, day one.

They stick to you like glue and it's the ideal time to really focus on recall before it all goes out of the window when they're teenagers 🤣

Haha okay that's pretty consistent!! I'm going to continue with letting off lead along with the recall training, that's reassuring to hear from everyone!

Thank you so much!

Very first walk here too. He’s a lurcher so wanted recall to be 100% and and 20 months it has been every single time.

She was a rescue so I waited for a month after her recall on the long lead was 100% perfect. So she started 100% recall on , say, 1 April and I let her off the lead on 1 May after a whole month of perfect recall.

very early, as soon as she could go out i think
she stuck to my side

she did bolt once, when i wasnt there and she was with the rest of the family
she also screamed with fright at a big dog and virtually jumped into my arms

I let my dog off as soon as he was fully vaccinated, when they are tiny they will just follow you around like a shadow, it's when they reach around 6 months that they turn in to arseholes!!

Trailing long lead is your friend.
“ off lead “ but also you have an emergency brake ( don’t hold it - let it trail and Stand on it if needed. Use with a harness not on collar ). Biothane best.