Advice needed

[Atemas]

DH took both dogs out this morning and he was gone for ages. I was just about to ‘walk-in talkie’ him when they arrived home. He said Red wouldn’t ‘come to lead’ which is our cue that they need to go back on lead near the end of the footpath out of the wood by the road. He said he could see her but as he approached she skittered away. This usually means she has been eating something she shouldn’t (arghh!!!) and knows she shouldn’t have. He was worried she might run into the road. She is so good generally that it is always a bit of a conundrum what to do when she gets like this.

What would you do?

 

[Selina27]

I'm no expert but do you ever do the lead on lead off thing when you are out on a walk? So that they don't associate going on lead with the end of the walk?
Just a thought

 

[Boogie]

I agree with @Selina27

I would also go to new places so that she doesn’t know when the walk has ended.

.

 

[Atemas]

the lead on lead off thing

Usually there is no need to do that and it’s not normally a problem. She just behaves like this occasionally - she has usually been eating something she has scavenged. They went out lunchtime and all was well.

 

[snowbunny]

Well, if she doesn't often do it, you have the choice of whether you do anything or not. Sometimes, you just have to pick your battles. There's a lot of things I could train to make my dogs "better", but I choose the things that will actually make a difference to us and that are most important to me.
So in this situation, I'd use my "scatter" cue, which is pretty strong. When she came over for the food on the floor, I'd clip her on lead. I wouldn't want to do that if she was avoiding the lead all the time, as it would weaken my scatter, but for something that only happens once in a while, I wouldn't be fussed about going out of my way to fix it.

If she were getting close to the road, I'd walk in the opposite direction, back towards safety, and address the issue there.

 

[Atemas]

I'd use my "scatter" cue

I nearly added that I would use this and do at times when she doesn't want to come in from the garden - she’s always a bit like @Boogie’s Tatze - ‘Show me the money’. I think what happened this morning unnerves me more than DH - he has constant faith in her and acknowledges her youth.

 

[Selina27]

They went out lunchtime and all was well.

 

[snowbunny]

I nearly added that I would use this and do at times when she doesn't want to come in from the garden - she’s always a bit like @Boogie’s Tatze - ‘Show me the money’.

Well, the scatter sounds a bit like "show me the money" because of the word we choose, but it's no different to any other recall cue - you give your cue, the dog comes and gets reinforced for that. It's like saying "treats!" or "dinner!". It's just that, because of the word we have chosen, we tend to have a really good reinforcement history because of our association with the word. But if you reinforced any other recall word in the same way, you'd get the same response to it