I got my dogs to walk behind me for 7 miles...

Good job...the ski pole was a great idea.

Yay!

I love successful field research!

I remember you mentioning you were going to try something like this, so I'm glad the "arm extention" via the ski pole to set the boundary worked so quickly and so well! I've used this technique a couple of times myself, with good results. I think it's time to incorporate it more often!

I've seen some herding folks use a staff to teach a dog to walk behind them, too.

Herding folks do use lightweight poles, sometimes staffs or rakes, to get dogs off sheep or change direction in early training - my girl respects the light fiberglass pole but the rake is too much for her.  My trainer never has touched her with the pole btw. :)  I've never seen herding trainers try to get dogs behind *them* though... 

dgriego

Hopefully no one accuses you of beating your dogs with a stick now LOL

LOL! 

How long did it take you to travel 7 miles?? I don't know my dog could even keep up that long, let alone me!

I'm going to leave the ideaology of all of this right behind and try to add something positive for once.

I feel that the terrain can often be a big help for you when teaching your dogs to stick close by. It's probably a lot harder with big dogs, but Penny learnt on her own to follow rather than lead because we'd take to little goat tracks and if she got ahead or ranged to the side, she couldn't see where I was going. I did a lot of longline work with her before I let her off leash, but once I did, I never had any troubles with her taking off and as soon as we'd hit the goat tracks she'd automatically fall in behind me until the terrain opened out again. She falls in so close behind me, in fact, that my heels keep knocking her in the jaw. For some reason that doesn't seem to bother her, because she still does it now. That kind of thing only works with a dog that is worried about getting left behind, though.

Penny is 100% reliable off leash in a close environment, even when she scoots off to chase roos. She never goes out of sight. It's when we get into an open environment that she wanders wider. I don't care if she's ahead or behind or to the side, as long as she takes her lead from me, which she always does. I did make it a point to trick her on a regular basis when we were walking off leash. She'd be ahead and pick one fork in the road and I'd just let her go, but then pick the other fork. She learnt to wait at the forks for direction or keep checking back to make sure we were in fact going that way. Usually when I'm in the bush, I'm too busy birdwatching and poking around looking at poo and tracks to keep tight control of my dog. She's pretty good at amusing herself until I stop looking at the sky. If she gets bored, she comes and sits by my feet and gives me the bored sigh and "are we going yet?" look.

I think with my next dog I'm going to do more long-line work in open environments. I'm interested to see if goat tracks can teach a larger dog to stick close.
 

 Oh, well that's not so bad. Penny's been on 4 hour hikes with me before, but my hikes are usually pretty relaxed and we meander with no destination in mind and stop a lot to look at things. I honestly can't imagine being so vigilant when I'm outdoors as to keep that tight a control of my dog. The instant I step outside I'm distracted by anything and everything. I have to ban myself from outside if I have things to do! Actually, I don't really understand the purpose of this exercise at all, I confess. What are you aiming for, lost?
 

dgriego

 

gratz on getting it done lost. Hopefully no one accuses you of beating your dogs with a stick now LOL

Well, I was going to make an accusation of not letting the dogs relax and sniff along the way, but now I realize what they must have been sniffing for those seven miles.  (where's the "yikes" smiley when you need it?)