Recall in exciting situations

[JES72]

A bit of a long post. Stanley is going well but recently in the warmer weather we’ve had two incidents with public in open spaces.
Stanley's recall has been generally quite good on his normal walks and we practice coming away from other dogs or coming back if he’s stopped to sniff and I’ve walked on.
A few days ago there was a man sunbathing in long grass in the middle of the common where most dogs are happily off lead. Stanley was sniffing around, then was startled by the man lying down, he did a few play bows and darted from side to side. I called him but he was focussed on the unusual manner of the man who jumped up and said Stanley was attacking him even though Stanley was a good few meters away not barking nor growling. I called Stanley but he ran around in circles avoiding being caught for a bit (a matter of seconds but felt like ages before I could get hold of his collar). Stanley was over excited by the man’s actions so wasn’t listening to me. Then today Stanley was as good as gold sitting with me and a friend while we stopped fur a coffee on a long walk. A man with two young children started playing with a football about 30 to 40 meters away. Stanley was interested and I kept his attention on my with lots of treats. As I shifted his lead in my hand he darted towards the ball and the lead slipped out my grasp. Stanley tried to get the ball and ran round for a moment not wanting to come to me, also for just a moment. The man was annoyed and said to keep him on lead.
After the first incident I thought that if Stanley was a bit more ball focussed I could get him away quickly by throwing a ball for him to chase which used to work with Homer, but after the second incident I think I need to desensitise Stanley to wanting to play with footballs.
So a two fold question. What could I use for a super exciting emergency recall or distraction and how do I desensitise his focus on footballs?
Just to add he’s still young and still learning all these situations but as he’s now a big dog his Puppies’s isn’t always appreciated.

 

[Anne123]

I am struggling too with this with Odin. Two weeks ago he saw a duck crossing his path. My OH is a bit stubborn in letting Odin off leash, So he was let off leash. He went after the duck, went swimming away, recall worthless....He folllowed the duck for quite some time in the water, couldn't get his attention.....I yelled his name for I knew he wouldn't listen to the whistle. After he while he turned and was looking for me. Then I whistled and he came straight back. That evening he was suffering from a cold water tail.....

I started to read the training tools which are started by Snowbunny. A lot of information and tools also for these situations.

 

[Jacqui-S]

No answers here.
Sully's recall to me when other dogs are available to play is not reliable at all. Luckily I walk in a very tolerant dog friendly woodland with him.
I think his behaviour is reinforced when on his "adventure days: with his dog walker where he plays with his dog buddies "quite hard".
His recall to his mum is quite a bit better. But she is The Chosen One.
My best recourse is to play hide behind a tree......

 

[HAH]

TLDR: Look at That and Look at Me games might help.

This is so familiar! I feel for you, Jess and Anne (and Jac of course, although maybe not quite so much weight of expectation when it’s not ‘your’ dog!). I’ve been trying to find the old posts on ‘Look At That’ and ‘Look At Me’ because I wonder if that’s the way forward for you both? I know there was a substantial thread of discussion and Snowbunny (?) explained it far better then I could now - but I’ll give it a go…
I think both your challenges might be similar, in that high value distractions (people doing weird things, balls, ducks) are currently more rewarding than your recall. Or to put it another way, once the adrenaline’s up and pumping, the teenage dog’s ability to think when over threshold is hugely reduced. And this is completely normal and common and standard behaviour for an adolescent, but so difficult for you as the owner.

@JES72 in your example, it also sounds like you and Stanley had 2 unfortunate incidents within a few days of each other, so little Stanley’s stress bucket was probably still quite full, and possibly yours too. No blame on you for how you managed it because you did incredibly well, in the face of some very challenging human behaviour (both my dogs would really struggle encountering a man lying in the grass. It’s just odd.) - but clearly that will have unsettled Stanley with how it played out.

What could I use for a super exciting emergency recall or distraction and how do I desensitise his focus on footballs?

He went after the duck, went swimming away, recall worthless....

We’re currently working with a trainer to get both our boys comfortable in the same space, and one of the key things is to help Stilton (3 this week) stay calm and behave gently with Kipper. Stilton often gets frustrated around other dogs and wants to get to them, which can lead to barking and over excited behaviour.

One of the ways we’re working on this is with shifting focus onto me, where my dog sees trigger (eg other dog) - I mark (‘Yes!’) - my dog looks at me - I scatter high value treats. After a few repetitions, my dog starts to equate the trigger with looking at me for high value treats rather than continuing to focus on and engage with the trigger, meaning that new behaviour loop becomes far more rewarding. After you scatter the treats you want to follow that up with praise, engagement, moving away from the trigger, play etc. - but you get the basic principle. If your marker word doesn’t get a response, throw treats anyway and next time try to lower the difficulty of the distraction (by creating more distance). If you can set up the scenario for training so you can make it super easy to begin with, all the better - so @JES72 , work with Stanley at a good distance from other dogs eg at the top of a park on a long line, or behind a fence where you can see other dogs at a distance; and @Anne123 , similar but with ducks (might be trickier to set up, but hopefully you can work near ducks where you can see them but not too near?). @JES72 I’m conscious this doesn’t answer your questions directly but I hope this might help with at least part of the solution - keep us posted!

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

Carbón is my first dog to have zero recall, so I’m just here to maybe pick up some new ideas. Not that I have much hope after 8 years, but you never know.