So I made a big mistake today

[mtrai]

I took both Hitch and Kanji to the empty dog park a couple of miles from house.

Well both together running free in the park is a bad bad idea as I found out. Hitch forgot everything he knows. No recall, no come, no ANYTHING.

Now when I have taken Hitch to the busy dog park at piedmont Park, he will come every time even with all the other dogs and people around. Just not when he is with Kanji. Go Figure.

Of course they had fun running unrestrained so it was not all bad. I could never take Kanji to the doggie park at Piedmont Park.

[chelle]

Oh yes, the Shiba influence factor! I learned this exactly once the hard way. At least in your case they were in an enclosed area. When I take my Shiba to the soccer park I do let her go, but on a long lead or two six footers put together.

[shaner]

Not necessarily a bad thing to take an untrained dog to an empty dog park, you just have to realize it can't be a training session and instead needs to be purely fun. If you try to work training into it, you're going to set the dog up to fail, which makes it harder to train in the long term.

Before my GSD, I had two huskies and despite trying for many, many years, I was unable to teach them the recall command. We never even made any progress. After years of trying including with trainers, we gave up and figured their instinct to run was too strong. So I would take them to empty dog parks so they could run free and play with each other, since I couldn't let them run anywhere else. I knew they wouldn't come when called, so I would just wait until they were done playing.

[katieliz]

whew, glad everything turned out okay!

[King&Skylar]

glad it turned out okay, live and learn! I can't take Kayden & Skylar to the beach together on long lines (I don't trust recall as Skylar was previously fear reactive)- they forget everything and I just about lose my arm lol.

[Davey Benson]

Originally Posted by chelle

Oh yes, the Shiba influence factor! I learned this exactly once the hard way. At least in your case they were in an enclosed area. When I take my Shiba to the soccer park I do let her go, but on a long lead or two six footers put together.

Ah....

The Shiba.... my cousin has one of those... the only dog I know that has a worse recall than my Great Pyrenees.... They are great dogs if you don't mind having them teathered to your wrist when ever you are out with them.

[BlackCat]

My sister has had GSDs and Huskys at the same time. She says GSDs are by far easier to train recall and Huskys are just free spirits. So, she trained the GSD to chase down the Husky when she ran and bring her home.

[katieliz]

oh yea, always the helper dog those sheppies!!!

[Zisso]

I literally get a sick feeling thinking of taking my two somewhere for off leash fun together. Unless that place has a fenced area. There is a place where the military lets us use to take our dogs, people ride horses, etc. I just get so scared taht together they will take off and not come back to me!

I took Nadia out there once last week and we started out on a long line. After a little while I took it off of her and let her go. She stayed close and always came right back if I called her.

I plan on taking Z out there this week. We will do the same, starting with the long line. I need to see how well his recall can be trusted so this will be a good place to start.

[shaner]

Originally Posted by Zisso

I literally get a sick feeling thinking of taking my two somewhere for off leash fun together. Unless that place has a fenced area. There is a place where the military lets us use to take our dogs, people ride horses, etc. I just get so scared taht together they will take off and not come back to me!

I took Nadia out there once last week and we started out on a long line. After a little while I took it off of her and let her go. She stayed close and always came right back if I called her.

I plan on taking Z out there this week. We will do the same, starting with the long line. I need to see how well his recall can be trusted so this will be a good place to start.

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.