Just a quick note to thank all those who offered advice on getting my golden, Maggie, to come when called.. I tried a little bit of everything, treats, playing ball, even the E collar.. She dearly loves playing ball with her older sister Kate.. That was a big help.. The treats and long rope helped also.. The E collar was mostly so I felt I had SOME control if she decided to head off some where dangerous... The pager worked like a charm to get her attention.. I only used the shocker once when she bolted and headed for the highway.. Today we were out and she responded to all of the commands, for want of a better word.. She listens very well, and when we were camping last week in Cody.. Most of the last days we were there, she roamed around our spot freely.. A couple times we had to call her from going to visit the neighbors sites, but I am very pleased with her behavior.. Again thanks for all those who offered advise..

Great news! Working with the dog is time well spent.

Glad it's working out!

Could be she just needed a little more time than some dogs for all the cogs in her noggin to start turning....whatever the reason I'm glad she's coming around.....a dog that won't come back when called can definitely be a frustration....
Agree about the pager too....best thing since sliced bread....

My Golden is 7 months and this is the dangerous time where they want to explore every butterfly and don't necessarily want to be obedient. I just started with the e-collar this week.

We have a pond across the street that I take her to. She jumped in and swam for 1.5 hours continuously. I did not call her, just let her have at it. After that long I finally had to paddle a boat out there and grab her. E collar came out of the box that evening.

Mine was about 8 mths, when the light switch came on.. She is pretty good to listen now.. Sometimes a smell over rides her judgment, but she is very good most of the time.. But that is true with us also..

She seems to have the distance down she can travel before returning, mostly on her own.. Good luck, they are beautiful friends.. Sounds like she loves the water.. My Kate is 4 years, and she loves to just swim.. Nothing needed to retrieve she just likes swimming.. Best of luck..

Wyo. It seems theres different switches in dogs that come on at different times...just like people. I couldn't even teach my Border Collie to be housebroken for months....let alone anything more complicated. I swear I thought I had the worlds only retarded Border Collie...
Suddenly at 8 months she started learning .....and it progressed geometrically. Ultimately she ended up with a 300 word vocabulary, 130 commands,Certified as Mobility Assistance Service Dog Level 1 and Level 2 ( there is no level 3...) Certified Seizure Alert and Response, and Certified in Narcotics Detection and Suspect Apprehension.
The joke for most of her life was that I wanted as many titles/certifications and accolades as my dog had!





God, I miss her.

ingwe, thanks.. That is quite a story about you collie, is she the one you often picture as ingwe dog??

We never get over them.. only adjust..

Did you ever read anything about Secretariat, big beautiful horse that did not see any reason to run for the first two years, then wham, a new jockey and he figured out what all the yelling was about he ran like the wind, some times it just takes a little time.

She was what I called Ingwedog II.

Ingwedog was a Border Collie x Australian shepherd. When I was learning the dog training biz I took the border Collie instead of her literally because Ingwedog so so smart it just plain wouldn't be fair. Indeed there were a couple of tasks I 'trained' her on that she did the first time she was asked, hence I learned nothing about training. One was putting clothes in a laundry basket and the other was opening a drawer and getting something out.



BTW- I picked Ingwedog up at 8 weeks and she was learning immediately. Much different that the BC.

Ingwe, where did you learn dog training? Wife is interested in learning to train...I hope dogs and not me.

Sorry for the late reply...



Good question as there was no one place or one source ( book/video/etc)....I literally picked it up little piece at a time from a bazillion sources. The key seems to be watching the dog, understanding how they learn, and making hard mental notes on what works. I could write volumes, but beware of those who tell you they have the ONLY way to train.
When I first started there were still a lot of Dominance Theory guys out there ( " you have to dominate the dog and let him know who is boss...") NEVER let a dog go through a door ahead or you, NEVER let him go up or down stairs in front of you, NEVER let him sleep with you blah blah blah. I realized quickly training Service Dogs and Police K9 that we were training them to do EXACTLY those things....so the dominance guys must be full of schitt....

I obviously got heavily involved and interested in the education and research part of it all. Our research in K9 Neuroscience has just scratched the surface but tell your wife the Positive Reinforcement approach to training has STRONG neurological backing and is most effective, by far, long term. Also tell her most training IS training the human, so she will probably train you before the dog!

This guy had trouble getting dogs into a big boat.

He said, "Hey! You in the leopard thing! If'n you can get those two dogs in the boat, I'll give you a ride. Fixing to be a lot of rain."

The rest is history...

I will make it my lifes goal to train a dog to catch grinners alive and deliver them directly to your hands...