Is your dog trained off leash?

 Emma has a 150% perfect recall, and I'm extremely proud of it. It's been years in the making, but she'll come off of anything, literally. It's been tested to the extent of the law, LOL.

Ena is still a puppy, but it's coming. She's already doing off leash obedience work, so I'm sure she'll have a great recall, too, once she's trustworthy. 

jennie_c_d

Emma has a 150% perfect recall, and I'm extremely proud of it. It's been years in the making, but she'll come off of anything, literally. It's been tested to the extent of the law, LOL.

I would be equally as proud.

How did you do it and how long did it take?

I can say that Gibby has 0% recall...he comes when he wants to OR if I have a treat. THAT is what I hate about him...he seems to only do things for treats now.... never had a dog like that.  Hopefully its part of his puppyness.

 First, I ruined "come". I said it, and she ran away, so I picked a new word (I say "here";). I never, ever said that word unless she was on a leash. There was lots of encouraging, and rewarding. Later, I said it in the house. Then the fenced yard. Eventually, it generalized. She also has a "this way" command. Literally, come closer, but not all the way to me. That was fairly easy to teach.

I still, to this day, carry cookies every time we're out and about. If she's off leash, or gets loose, I reward her for coming. Period. Coming to me is a GOOD thing! I've never used her magic word to get her to come for a nail trim. I've never used it to get her to come for medicine. I've never called her, then punished her. It's all completely positive. Now, I have called her without treats, but I keep the rate of reinforcement VERY high.

 Both of my dogs have a Lets Go command.  Which means I'm going this way, and you'd better follow or get left behind.  Both are silly about not being able to see me.  I've used it in situations where I need Crusher to ignore something like dogs on leash that I spot across the park or where ever that are already straining on the leash. 

I can also call him off a deer.  His leave it is amazingly rock solid.  So if he takes off after a deer, I can say,"Leave It!" and he'll stop the chase.  He won't come back, but he stops the chase.  Hmm....maybe I should work on his stay...I did have him pretty solid on that for a while and I used it once when I needed to get him back.  

jennie_c_d

I still, to this day, carry cookies every time we're out and about. If she's off leash, or gets loose, I reward her for coming. Period. Coming to me is a GOOD thing! I've never used her magic word to get her to come for a nail trim. I've never used it to get her to come for medicine. I've never called her, then punished her. It's all completely positive. Now, I have called her without treats, but I keep the rate of reinforcement VERY high.

This is the way I train the recall too.  It means always having treats in your pocket but as time goes by you don't have to reinforce every time.  My JRT is the best off leash as far as recall and it is because for years he got a treat every time and he never had any thing bad happen (in his mind) when I called him.  My two younger dogs are not there yet...............They are always on lead, but we use 30 ft training leads so they can have a little freedom and it also allows me to let them get to the end and then recall them from a slight distance and give them a treat.

I'd never walk a dog off leash in an area with cars, but we do go to off leash parks every weekend. I think doing that on a regular basis from a young age (around 4 months old) really helped make being off leash around distractions a routine thing. Now if Keefer got out the front door he might go visiting the neighbors before coming back, but he WOULD come back. Having ball obsessed dogs helps too, or any other toy or game that they need you to play with them.  

We don't see bunnies or deer, but one of the parks has cows during part of the year. I could throw the ball towards the herd and my dogs would chase the ball and bring it back, ignoring the cows, because they'd been so conditioned to retrieve a ball. Here's Keef ignoring a cow at 6-1/2 months old:

 This one isn't a great quality pic, but you can see how close to the cows the ball was thrown - they had just picked it up and were about to run back with it:

That was only possible because chasing balls was way more exciting than a bunch of cows standing around.  

I love your second pic.  Some of those cows are looking at your dogs "what the hec are you doing?"  LOL

 I'm very happy with Heidi's recall; and we do training all the time off leash now (and have since she was about 8 months old (within fence). 

Buddy never really had any formal training with exception to the basic sit, down, stay, come.  He's such a velcro dog, I never needed to worry about him.

Bruder who I've only had since end of September is coming along quite nicely.  I've not even done any training on leash with him (aside from loose leash walking).  Everything is done off leash within my fenced in areas.  His recall so far is superb...always call him like I'm going to have a party and if I don't have a treat in hand, he gets lot of praise.  Which luckily, works for him.  He loves to be loved. 

I don't think Max will ever be 100%.  We do meet his good bud Sydney (a 16 yr. old lab mix) and the end of the street pretty often and both dogs play off leash together at the edge of an 8 acre field right in the middle of the neighborhood.  If he starts to meander off and I call him, he comes right back and he'll stand in the doorway while I unload groceries from the car and just watch when I tell him to stay. However ... I honestly think that if he spotted another dog across the street, a squirrel or a cat or somebody came up the front walk, he'd be out the door in a heartbeat. Maybe I'm wrong.  He might surprise me.

Joyce

Mine are all trained off leash, it's something that's very important to me and the way I exercise them, so we've worked really hard on it from day one, and I would say that all three are 100% or close to it....maybe 100% for the bc, 99% for the shelties. I've always heard that hounds and northern breeds can never be trusted off leash, no matter what....part of the reason I chose herding breeds was for their velcro-ness.

  My dogs on the whole are good about recalls - most have been naturally good about wanting to stick around. I wouldn't test any of them, no matter how good near a busy road.

 Their off lead training is usually starts when I don't use leashes in the front yard (we have a fenced back but for housetraining the first step is the front yard supervised) when they are puppies. Up until a certain age most puppies naturally want to follow their owners. If their attention wanders, I'll step out of sight for a minute and watch. Usually they get a bit worried and start looking for me. First lesson - if you don't pay attention to me, you might get lost.

  Then it progresses to off lead at the fairgrounds. Our county has a HUGE fair and the fairgrounds are open almost every day of the year for the public to walk around, kinda like a great big park. The very back of the fairgrounds are parking lots and camper lots and then, woods. So we take the dogs as a group to walk there over the back lots and through the woods. This sort of walking is no fun if the dogs are on lead ;) It is a pretty safe place as it is semi enclosed. We always carry treats and the dogs are rewarded for "checking in" with us, as often as they want. The newbies catch on really quick that all they have to do is run back to us for a treat and then they can go play again. If we have a new dog that is more than a few months old, they'll drag a long line the first time or so. The dogs don't always stay real close - sometimes they race away and become small specks but race back just as quickly. Usually they stay just a bit ahead of us but sometimes they lag behind too.

 IMO training the dogs to be off leash is more than just teaching a recall. My dogs are taught that they are supposed to keep an eye on us. We'll randomly change direction and the dogs are expected to follow because they are watching us. We do teach them a recall as well, as that is important in certain situations but you don't need to depend on it so much if the dogs feel it is their job to stay with you.

  The other big factor is that if the leash being on or off becomes something major, you loose off leash reliablity. For dogs who are always, always, always kept on leash, being off leash is a big deal and they tend to want to keep their freedom as long as they can (much to the dismay of their owner). But when dogs are trained in a way that is not dependant on the leash and are allowed off leash often (in safe places of course) being off leash becomes a normal part of life.

For those who feel their dogs would never be reilable off leash but wish they could be, there are ways for many dogs (not all) but it does take more work to undo poor off leash behavior than to teach them to be reliable from the start. I suggest Shirley Chong's recall lessons to build a reliable recall. Even if off leash play isn't important to you and you have no plans for it, a reliable recall should be taught:

Pofi and Mia are also off leash in very large and not fully secured off leash areas every weekend.  I've also had our fence gates left open or opened by passers by (the school kids at the bus stop on the corner) and neither dog has left the yard.  There was once that I let them out w/o knowing there was an open gate and my neighbor rounded them up and came to the front door with them - she said Mia had crossed the street, but Pofi had stayed on our side and was nervously pacing watching Mia.

They have superb recall - the off leash areas are pretty expansive and wooded and they constantly "check in" and come when called.  Pofi can be a little slow when he's found a yummy, lush patch of tall grass to sample from, but if I put a little more distance between us and he hears from my voice I'm farther away he comes bolting.  But I can call them away from other dogs, off of dead fish, live squirrels, etc. 

I do not test this in the city on the streets (well, sometimes in our urban park if it's devoid of other people), but I do not walk them off lead on city streets.  It's just not worth the risk and not fair to other pedestrians who might be worried to see dogs not leashed (this can be intimidating to anyone, but I also live in a very diverse neighborhood and some of the cultures and countries my neighbors are from do not commonly have companion animals and I try to be very sensitive to that).