The taste of freedom and will recall return?

[Sue and Cash]

We use a lake for swimming once a week that is only partially fenced in.  It has such tempting lush fields and woods around it.  I knew after a couple months of this, Cash would probably be lured further away from me.  He tried a couple times to swim around the fence and dashed up shore to take a roll or two in the weeds.  But always when I called him, returned to us.  Well yesterday several friends we hang with all the time came along, and he has grown up with these dogs.  A young husky pal swam around the fencing and ran up to the field and sure enough Cash went along with Mia.  He follows her all over all the time.  She bullied him so often as a little guy and he still follows her everywhere but keeps a safe distance since he seems a bit intimidated by her.  Instead of returning when we both called our dogs, they took off with total delight.  They ran around the other side of a large lake onto the dock and found the ducks and a crane who got the heck out of there quickly!  They were just enjoying the whole place yelling for them to come back and me dashing far behind them.  Luckily it is far from traffic or homes etc.  But I was still shocked at his boldness since he always comes back!!  Is it teenage rebellion, spreading his wings and getting a bit ballsy?

Or because he had what he sees as a dominant female with him, he was safer going with her?

I am not comfortable going back again there since I no longer trust my recall.  We will stay within fenced areas until I am sure of him.  Does it return with practice?  Is it just the young rebel coming out at the age of 10 months?  Now that he knows where the ducks swim, will he forever be drawn to them?

[Dixie Cruise]

My guess is that now that he has experienced the joy of running off ... he will continue to do so. My experience with past setters is that they are not so much being naughty ... it's just that they SO desire to run free. So be very careful until you are sure!

[Sue and Cash]

Thank you. It's funny he avoided this particular dog since she has bullied him about drinking water and balls etc. since he was a baby. Her owner always kept her away from us since she decided she was going to dominate him. Now that he is bigger than her, she runs often with him and is very behaved. She stopped even trying to dominate him. And they are like hooking up all the time now running together, but Cash stays very reserved with her. Like she is allowing him some time with her now that he is growing up. Pack order and how they interact is facinating to me. And when she let him go with her off to the other side of the lake, I could see how he was quite proud of himself for disobeying me and going along with her. I think since we don't have much swimming weather left, we will stick to our usual place where he runs free everyday and is safe inside a fence. He has loads of space to run and even though he loves the water, he needs to improve his recall skills and prove trustworthy again. And Gigi I agree with you. He is never outside of a fenced area. We are lucky to have huge open spaces that are safe to run in without fear of loosing him. It's unfortunate that the swimming places are all unfenced though.

[Sue and Cash]

these are off leach areas within the forest preserves. Not actually a dog park persay. They are fenced but heavily wooded. The lake we go to is an actual town's dog park that is fully fenced in the play areas with agility equipment, tables and indoor bathrooms!! You go through the gates to the lake which is partial fenced but they can swim around that to get loose to the huge baseball fields and fishing docks. He tried once or twice but always swam, rather walked through the water back. He is tall enough to not have to swim around the fence. I wish they had extended the fencing another few feet so the water would be too deep for them to escape. He isn't the only one. We have an escapee all the time there. It is for the dog to use. So we don't have to sneak it. All the other dog lakes in the area are totally unfenced and I do not use them. They are so dirty also. This is nice because it isn't heavily used and very clean, no fishy smells etc. I just do not trust that he won't go back to look for the ducks and cranes again now! I can see him the whole time and again it is several miles to a roadway BUT if he won't stay put he won't swim period. The problem is how do you teach the cause and effect? I say no and if he continues off where I do not allow then get him leached and leave? Otherwise how does he learn that he can't go beyond a certain point. It would have to consistantly leave immediately. Fun over. I am just not sure how to teach boundries like that. I think it would have to be over and over again till the light bulb goes off in his head...if I do that-we go home. And that can take quite a while for some dogs to understand. Maybe Jethro can come teach Cash a thing or to about it Sue. Or maybe by next summer when we swim again, he will have settled down a bit more. Wishful thinking since water seems to get dogs so riled up.

[Louise Perry]

Hi Sue, i too am interested in the the cause and effect theory as I do have problems with Reuben's recall at times and am trying to reinforce it at present. I use to walk with a colleague and her dog a whippet but have stopped as she was teaching Reuben bad habits. She would run up alley ways (esp if she saw a cat or something) and he would follow in hot pursuit and actually then would remember these alley ways when we were walking alone. She is definitely the dominate one out of the two and 6 months older too. Her owner thinks she is well trained but I think her recall is quite bad and dont think her owner sees it as a problem. she will stand there a no just keep shouting "Molly come" about 15 times and there is no consequence when her commands are ignored so i think the dog has just learned to switch off when something else is far too interesting.
I also started walking alone more as with other dogs Reuben get so excited and works himself into a frenzied excitement and couldnt care less about me! Now I know he is young and I accept that but now i only let him have limited playtime with other dogs and then move on. I think my mistake was I was so intent in socialising him to start with i let him have too much playtime and free running and now have to teach control. Gosh hindsight is a great thing...
Also with the age cash is then yes the naughty teenage time is part of his sudden recall issue too. I definitely have a teen Reuben with raging hormones and have recently had the Superlorin implant to see if this will help me get his focus back and aid with the training - time will tell!

[Ilona & Gina]

We had that problem with a German shorthaired pointer, who just showed our 'kids' bad manners. When Anton & Gina were around him, they learnt not to come back on recall. We stopped socialising, and it took us 6 weeks to get our Terrible Two back on track.

On the other hand, there is a dog in the park who obviously does obedience training. He is fabulous! When our dogs watch Casper doing his training, they beg to do some training, too! See, it works the other way round as well.