# Distractions and recall training



## Truman Dad (Mar 30, 2014)

Truman is my 16 month old intact male who is great with basic training but has problems with recall. He is great when I use the whistle to recall him and always reward with a high value treat during training, but anytime he sees another dog or person, I don't exist. He ignores my whistle and I have to fetch him. I take him out everyday and train on recall using all the valuable info on here. My question is if neutering (his behavior is very good, no mounting, etc.) will help, is this an age issue where he will mature or do I need an e-collar?


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## MeandMy3 (Feb 27, 2013)

We had a similar situation with our girl. She was so horrible on her recall that we took her to a trainer and left her there for two weeks. He trained her (as well as us!) with the e-collar and now her recall is almost 100%. 

Good luck!


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

E-collar. You will be amazed!

(Obviously, do your homework and know how to use one properly ).


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Its because his recall is voluntary, not mandatory. 
Every time you whistle, and he is not made to come to you, it reinforces that its his choice. You need to put a check cord on him to take that choice way, or you can go with a ecollar. Neutering won't fix recall.


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## miru (Sep 9, 2014)

Hello everybody,

We were having the same problem with Leo that is 8 month old now;
in fact what is happening is that he listens when he wants to and when he is rewarded(meaning that if the reward of playing with another dog is greater than what I am offering him ,he will not come when called :-\)
and this was like this for everything(recall,jumping on people,eating horse sheet in the woods,he was choosing the greater reward and leaving us helpless)

So i thought we touched the limits of positive conditioning and yesterday met with a trainer that believes in "introducing the contraint".This meant that he put a collar around Leo's neck and when he tried to jump on someone he made a short powerful pull and said an authoritarian NO.
It worked...
He encouraged us to introduce the "physical stimulus"together with a NO everytime we want a behaviour to stop:like firmly taking him down from the counter while saying NO, grabing him firmly when he is not coming while saying COME,etc.
It looked like the end of"gentleness",worried us,but Leo stopped the counte-rsurfing..
So what do you think?
are we breaking his tender vizsla heart, or positive really needs some negative training also?

Thank you 

Miru


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

It should be more positive, than negative when training. But there does come a time when you need both. Because Vs are soft, just make sure you don't go to far, and every training session ends with the your dog being happy.

Some training that I know will put a lot of pressure on my dog, I keep short. Train for a few minutes, then have happy playtime and praise for doing good. I just keep rotating the two throughout the training time.

*grabbing him firmly when he is not coming while saying COME,etc*
Because I want my dogs to be happy coming to me, I can't say I have ever done that before. Does this trainer train Vizslas? Some breeds hold up to the yank and spank training methods, but vizslas aren't one of them.
You can still learn from the trainer, but you will probably have to tone down his methods.


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## miru (Sep 9, 2014)

Thank you TR,

this really makes sense to me


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## Truman Dad (Mar 30, 2014)

Thank you everyone for your help. I had my blind spot where I blamed everything but me and didn't see the common sense problem that it was me...lol The 24' check lead is in Truman's future...thanks everybody!


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