So I made a big mistake today

[chelle]

Originally Posted by shaner

That's why when I was raising Cedar, I made sure to take her for an off leash walk at least 4-5 times per week. We wouldn't do it near roads, but in forest areas with trails. I would keep her off leash as much as possible in hopes that when she got older, being off leash would just be a normal thing and there would be little to no risk of her running off. Obviously I also did training during some of the walks. We worked on the recall command quite a bit. It seemed to pay off as she sticks right by me at all times when off leash.

That's so true, so important. All three of mine have been offleash at very young ages, just so they wouldn't "freak out" when the leash came off later.

Unfortunately this gameplan did not work out for the Shiba. As she got older, recall became worse and worse and exactly opposite of the other dogs. She'll never be an offleash dog, but I've never heard of a Shiba that was.

[JakodaCD OA]

there was a guy in my agility club who had shiba's,,I gave that guy so much credit, his shiba was just awful in the ring LOL,,,do a jump and GONE,,maybe do two jumps/two obstacles and GONE...I never ever saw this guy qualify and never saw hime get thru an entire agility course, but he kept trialing and kept trialing,,

I had to give him credit, I would ahve been soooooooo frustrated there's no way I would have lasted even 1/2 the time he did

[shaner]

Originally Posted by chelle

That's so true, so important. All three of mine have been offleash at very young ages, just so they wouldn't "freak out" when the leash came off later.

Unfortunately this gameplan did not work out for the Shiba. As she got older, recall became worse and worse and exactly opposite of the other dogs. She'll never be an offleash dog, but I've never heard of a Shiba that was.

Yeah, my two huskies were the same way. Kept them off leash all the time while they were puppies, worked on the recall command constantly, but it didn't matter, once they got a bit older, they would run off and not even look back. Instincts were just too strong I think.

[iBaman]

Tehe, we just recently started working off leash with shel...only time I've had a problem with it is when I was at my parents house, we let him out back to do his business and he didn't want to come back inside. wouldn't even chase me. no more off leash there. when we go to the soccer field right next to our apartments, we stand on opposite ends of the field and have him run between us, with lots of hugs when he comes when called. =] he likes it. and it tires him out. *looks at the pile of fluff passed out on the floor*