borderman100 Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Hi all i need some help we tried to correct the Behaviour by useing high value treats toys and trying to distract him but when he gets fixated on swifts and other birds he will not respond to the recall command and he just run's after them ,we put a long lead on him but what can we try and get him out of this Behaviour,he is ok with the recall when there are no distractions like this .he responds to sit ,stand,down,stay and is very good considering he is only 20 weeks old have anyone got anything i can try that will help improve the recall command and reinforce it .i have lost confedents in letting him run off the lead since he as started chasing birds as we don't want him runing off or getting killed on the roads . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frisbeegirl Posted August 4, 2012 Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Hi, I had the same problem with Keeva at 4 months. Chased the deer, the turkeys etc. To be honest it just took time. Everytime she would chase something and I would have to find her I would put her back on the long leash. They learn very fast. After a few times using the leash I took her off. She is 11 months and we come in contact with alot of wildlife and she starts the chase but knows the borders. We do everything offleash at my farm. She knows now that we want to move the wildlife not catch them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frisbeegirl Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Keep practicing the recall. When she was a pup I would take her outside in the fields and have someone with me. I would call her name once with a come after. It was so awesome to see this little pup run across a field at night right to me. To do anything offleash you will need a perfect recall. Also as far as treats go never wotrked with my pup, not food motivated at all. She came from working stock and only eats after work has been done. Must be genetic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frisbeegirl Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Oh and by the way I am not an expert. Just letting u know what my experience is. Didn't even know this was the forum u were asking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderman100 Posted August 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Oh and by the way I am not an expert. Just letting u know what my experience is. Didn't even know this was the forum u were asking. thanksyou for the reply any help on this problem would be great i will to try anything to get this distraction out of the way .do you think hes still young to stop him running after birds .?????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eileen Stein Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Borderman100, welcome to the Boards. I am moving this thread to General Border Collie Discussion, where I think you will get more responses. The Ask an Expert forum is for questions about stockdog training and handling, which are answered by a designated expert (currently Amanda Milliken). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachdogz Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Hi and welcome! Mine also quit doing this as they matured. You will find he will respond better as he grows older, as long as you don't quit training. So just keep working with him and have a little patience. However, I might add that the chipmunks and squirrels still drive them crazy. That is one cute dog you've got there!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderman100 Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Hi and welcome! Mine also quit doing this as they matured. You will find he will respond better as he grows older, as long as you don't quit training. So just keep working with him and have a little patience. However, I might add that the chipmunks and squirrels still drive them crazy. That is one cute dog you've got there!!! hi thanks i'm using the long lead and training him to leave it as he knows what this is when the swifts come in close on the field he just sits there now but he is still fixated on them lol i would still not trust him thou with the lead off .every where we go he gets lots of attention he is a pedigree and both perents have been hip scored .if you put the chasing aside he's a great dog with very good temperament thanks for getting back to me . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderman100 Posted August 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Borderman100, welcome to the Boards. I am moving this thread to General Border Collie Discussion, where I think you will get more responses. The Ask an Expert forum is for questions about stockdog training and handling, which are answered by a designated expert (currently Amanda Milliken). no problem and thankyou for letting me write in the forum . borderman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G. Festerling Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 First order of business is teaching a pup his name. Second to teach come with no distractions. Then gradually the distractions become more. Then you proof the recall. Somewhere along the way you teach the pup that your command goes even though it is not his idea. Step by step. Slow and easy and it all will take a whole lot longer than 20 weeks. And to me, this kind of gradual work builds a strong bond which is the basis for the pup to refer to you when the time come where it counts. He will learn his boundaries. But he still needs time to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajm Posted August 15, 2012 Report Share Posted August 15, 2012 I glad it is not incumbent upon me to answer this one now that Eileen has kindly moved it. It is a situation where I would consider an electric collar--life threatening things, like for a car chaser, a deer chaser. I have never used one and never would for training a dog but if I lived near any roads or had a car chaser, I would consider it. Amanda Hi all i need some help we tried to correct the Behaviour by useing high value treats toys and trying to distract him but when he gets fixated on swifts and other birds he will not respond to the recall command and he just run's after them ,we put a long lead on him but what can we try and get him out of this Behaviour,he is ok with the recall when there are no distractions like this .he responds to sit ,stand,down,stay and is very good considering he is only 20 weeks old have anyone got anything i can try that will help improve the recall command and reinforce it .i have lost confedents in letting him run off the lead since he as started chasing birds as we don't want him runing off or getting killed on the roads . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anniko Posted August 15, 2012 Report Share Posted August 15, 2012 Glad to here we're not the only ones with this problem ...We've been trying to stop Rikki from chasing both cars and birds from the time we first got her. Since the streets are not so busy here (suburb) we were semi-successful with getting her to stop chasing cars. It's not perfect, and if she gets away she might still start to chase but has, on multiple occasions, actually stopped mid-chase and returned. (Most of these incidences happened when we let her off-leash on what we thought was an unused dirt road) However, after months of trying, I cannot get her to stop chasing birds. She won't lunge at them anymore when she has a leash on, but she is still obviously interested and will chase off leash. It doesn't help that some members of my family used to think it's ok to let her out in the backyard to chase the birds because it's "fun" for her. It wasn't fun when I had to chase her for over a mile to catch her the first time she ran off chasing birds. I'll be moving out (with Rikki, of course) soon so this won't be part of the problem anymore. I'm just starting agility with her and I don't know what I'm going to do if she starts running away to chase birds on the agility field. I'm seriously considering an electric collar. Is there any other training method for this besides treats (she is not food motivated)? I have tried putting her on a (VERY) long line, going out in to a field, and playing fetch until she goes after a bird. I would then call her and reel her in and put her in a down position. I kept repeating it hoping she would learn that chasing the birds means the game of fetch will end, but as soon as the line comes off she starts chasing again. I don't know how long I have to keep doing this to get results but the bird chasing seems to be a well-ingrained habit by now. Her recall is good coming off other things, but not birds. I read somewhere else that the best way to stop the bird chasing is giving them a 'job' to do in response to seeing the bird. I don't have a clue what that is supposed to be, especially since the birds are everywhere at almost all times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howling Farmer Posted August 18, 2012 Report Share Posted August 18, 2012 This bird chasing sounds exactly like Tucker's shadow chasing. Yes, birds are everywhere at almost all times, just like, given the right light, so is his shadow. The other day Tucker chased his shadow all the way into the neighbor's cornfield, only to re-emerge coming through a patch of Giant Hogweed. For those of you who don't know, this is a really noxious weed, kind of like a nuclear poison oak or ivy, that can cause horrible burns. Now I can only let him off leash certain times of the day, or when it's overcast. He is also about 5 months old. One thing a trainer I work with suggested that seems to be helping -- every time he chases his shadow (or birds, in your cases,) without saying a word, I put him in his crate for a time out. Thirty seconds the first time, then 60, then 90 (I suppose one could work up to quite a length here...) I have a crate in the barn, so I don't have to drag him all the way into the house each time. I'm still keeping a long-line on at this point. Maybe in a few days (weeks? months???) I'll be able to take it off... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frisbeegirl Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Howling Farmer, When Keeva was in heat and I needed to put her on a leash until I knew I could trust her she used to put her head down as if she was in trouble and her head would be looking at the ground the whole time. I didn't want her to think she was being punished so I would say to her keep your head up (I know this sounds silly) and she would. If you pup is chasing its shadow it must be concentrating on the ground. Maybe try this command. Sounds like your pup needs to focus on something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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