Ashleygrove Gundogs

'My young Spaniel was training up quite well and was

very reliable on his verbal recall command. Suddenly he

will now take off with no warning and disappear round

the field with his nose down, ignoring my recall. What

do I do to bring him back in line?'

Spaniels (and retrievers) love to hunt and will go self

employed if they are given the freedom to do so. He

will enjoy this freedom and learn fast that he can ignore

you and you cannot catch him. Until he is fully trained

to voice and whistle for recall you should use a safe

enclosed area for any off lead training. He must be re-

conditioned to respect your commands and to want to

stay in your company. Make yourself a training/retrieving

lane for all his off lead work. When he is compliant in

this area you can move to a bigger fenced area. Use lots

of positive reinforcement for good work and react fast for

misdemeanours, interrupting the unwanted behaviour. It

may take several weeks in each situation to proof the dog’s

 behaviour again and confirm that he seeks your attention in

 preference to free running. Once the confidence is re-built

between you, move to more open areas again. If you take

him where there is any game present before your controls

are in place you run the risk of unravelling all your training.

While you are fixing this problem do all your retrieves in

your ‘safe’ area as retrieving is essentially recall with a

dummy in the mouth!