[susanb]

I bought my Acme 210.5 dog whistle and it arrived last week. I just thought I would let you know how I have got on so far and see if anyone has any further tips.

So - I have been using it in the house. If I can get a chance, and Gisgo is in a different room to me, I give my three "toots" on my whistle. And...he comes running at full speed....amazing! he gets a high value treat each time!

The other day he was upstairs having stolen a sock from the washing basket. I "tooted" 3 times and he dropped the sock and ran downstairs to me.

I use it in our garden (we have a big garden). Again he gets a high valie treat when he comes running.

Now my problem.....if he has found a particularly tasty bit of bird poo, chicken poo or some other revolting thing.....then he does still ignore my "tooting". Can anyone offer any advice on what I should do then? At the moment, I "toot" again and if he still does not come then I either just walk back into the house, or I walk up to him and get his collar and pull him away from the delicacy. Anything else I should do?

 

[Jedicrazy]

Hi, sounds like you are doing great on the recall training

Personally I don't use the whistle for anything other than "come to me" and would train a verbal "Leave it" command for the situations where he is eating something he shouldn't. I don't know if you can use the same whistle command as catchall for everything? Would have thought this might confuse the dog? I expect people who train gun dogs to the whistle have different whistle blows for different commands?

 

[susanb]

Thanks, Clare. I had not thought of it like that....I was thinking that if I was blowing for "come here" then he would leave the yucky thing automatically and come to me. Next time I will try "leave" and see if that works (he is quite good at "leave" when he is walking with us on his lead).