Recall

Elastic Walking

What?

Elastic Walking is a technique which trains your dog to remain within a close proximity of you when he's off the lead.

Imagine that there is a piece of elastic attached to your belt at one end and your dog at the other. As your dog moves further away, the elastic tightens and they feel a pull back toward you.

Why?

The pattern in which you will walk when Elastic Walking is everything but in a straight line. Most humans walk everywhere in a straight line and dogs learn the predictability of exactly where their owner will be when they look up, especially if they follow the same footpath every day. The pattern you cover with Elastic Walking mimics how your dog moves around the field and makes you more interesting to them. It also makes walks more engaging.

To your hard-hunting gundog, there becomes a value in hanging around you and looking where you are heading next. He learns that if he sticks his nose in a bush to smell something interesting, that when he looks up 10 seconds later, you're not going to be where he thought you would be.

Don't worry though, you can still walk your dog and get places, you just need to take the scenic route to get there whilst you are in this phase of training.

In future modules, we will train your dog to respond to your whistle when you want a recall, but there's nothing more annoying than someone who constantly blows a whistle every 30 seconds to keep their dog from straying. If your dog is trained to naturally stick close and regularly check-in, you will only need your whistle in more extreme situations, such as when another dog appears unexpectedly.

How?

Leave your Acme hanging by the front door. No whistle is required for this exercise, just a big bag of your dog's food and a clicker if you are going to use one.

With your dog off the lead, sprinkle some food on the ground and walk off. Keep an eye on your dog finishing the food. Just as soon as he starts moving toward you, mark the good choice he's made and sprinkle the next handful of food. The wider you sprinkle, the longer you've got to walk somewhere else. Each time you should walk in a different direction.

Choose which overall direction you are heading for your Elastic Walk (probably a footpath down the field) and aim to get from the start to the finish without your dog ever being more than (say) 20 meters from you at any point.

Target to Achieve For Next Week

Before undertaking the next module on this course, it is important that you practice at home. Daily repetition will ensure that your dog has enough time to learn the behaviour before we progress further.

Next week, we will start the training at the point where we assume that your dog can perform the following criteria:

Choose which overall direction you are heading for your Elastic Walk (probably a footpath down the field) and aim to get from the start to the finish without your dog ever being more than (say) 20 meters from you at any point.

If you want to advance this to the next level, find a field with a gap at the entrance such as an open gate. Work across the field, from one side to the other, aiming to walk through the gap with your dog at your side, but without saying anything, or needing to whistle. Your Elastic Walking is what gets you both yo-yo'ing back and forth across the field and then through the gap together.