Recalling our 9-month old Welsh springer was a nightmare.
We did puppy classes and he passed recall with full marks, but by 6 months he would disappear for 20 minuets or more. If he was on a scent it could be for a hour, we started to dread letting him off lead.
We knew that we needed to do something quickly.
We rang Colin – Dog intuition and booked a 1-2-1 session
Colin initially taught us how to use a long line for the early part of re educating Herbie’s recall. He also showed us some games to play with him to help focus his attention on us a bit more.
Herbie started to change, he was much more focused on us and less interest in the smells around us, and his recall was improving.
We’ve had about eight sessions with Colin over the past five months or so and have seen a huge improvement in Herbie. We now walk through the fields and wooded areas and past enticing hedgerows in the Lansdown area with Herbie off lead. And although we still have to be vigilant with him, I know that I can get him to stop, wait, return to me, and get him to continue along a wooded path with me rather than darting off to check out the latest smell.
I am so much more confident that he will come back when I call him. He’s not perfect (yet!) but I feel that Colin has given us a great set of skills to ensure that we can continue to train him.
Herbie, of course, knew exactly how to behave given the right training and commands– it was us his owners, who were in need of the “dog training”.
As Welsh springers are by nature rather sensitive souls, we wanted to find a trainer who used positive reinforcement to train a dog. Colin was perfect for us – gently correcting our methods without ever being condescending, and adapting each session to the issues that we felt we needed to address.
Herbie is always delighted to see him and we leave each session feeling like we have made huge progress with our spaniel when out and about. I am enjoying our walks so much more and am happy to let him bound through the long grass and check out the hedgerows confident that he will come charging back to me when I call him.
Thank you so much Colin.