For those of you who are rather recent to the forum and don't know of my saga with Dottie, Here is her story: Dottie is a two year old Llewellin Setter we got from a rescue in February 2009. The rescue told us they found her abandoned on a chain, starved nearly to death! Not only that, but when we brought her home, she manifested several other problems. One was her immense insecurity and fear (not surprising, considering what she'd been through). She would attack our other dog, Annie, whenever food or affection were part of the equation. But they are great friends now.
Another problem we discovered was that Dottie was a car chaser! But she is cured now, through my very gentle and positive persistence. To save myself some extra typing, I will just post an exerpt from a recent update I sent to the rescue about that.
The other big problem we have had is recall. Being a pointing class bird dog, Dottie was specifically bred to range out-- as far as 300 or 400 meters, to find birds for the hunting human. However, Dottie is a bit retarded from having been starved, and forgets what she's supposed to be doing. She gets caught up in the joy of running and loses her focus. Plus, since I am nocturnal, I walk her during dark time, so if she goes off on a bird hunt, I cannot see her. One thing she does, being a "started" bird dog, is to go on point and stay on point, until I find her. That is hard to do at night! So I've had a lot of work to do in this regard, especially considering that I am basically trying to re-train a feature that is part of her breeding. Again, to save me some time, I'm including an exerpt from the update email I sent to the rescue. Here it is:
___________
I hope you don't get tired of hearing about Dottie so often, but gosh, she's so much fun I have to share the wonder with someone who can appreciate it! (LOL)
Dottie has made phenomenal progress, as I've already mentioned in my other recent updates. But she has once again achieved a very significant milestone: RECALL.
Oh yes, she has come such a long way! There was a time not so long ago when I had to keep hold of that leash, and hold tight-- I didn't DARE lose my grip, because Dottie would take off running and not remember to come back until she was hopelessly lost. And that combined with her car-chasing habit, well... I'm sure you don't even want to imagine.
But I've been working diligently with her! A couple of months ago I was able to start letting her trail the leash in "safe" open places, like small neighborhood subdivisions, the city park, and the school yard. I keep calling her back to me, or tell her to "wait" for me to catch up when she gets several meters ahead of me, or whenever I'm uncomfortable. When cars come, I'm able to recall her and take up the leash until it is safe to let go again.
That's another milestone: the other day I was walking around the community on leash. When we came to a large vacant lot that was parallel to the road, but a good 50 yards off of it, I dropped the leashes and let the girls walk free a bit. There was a considerable amount of traffic going by, including some trucks. Remember, trucks still get Dottie a bit google-eyed. But whenever I heard one coming, I would call her back to me BEFORE she began to react. The action of coming back to me took up all of her attention, so she didn't notice the trucks going by. So even her car-proofing continues to get better!
However, she has not yet progressed enough to resist the scent of birds, so if we are within 100 yards of an area where I know there are birds roosting in the brush, I have to take up the leash and keep hold of her-- otherwise, she'll go "hunting," and the only way I can get her back is to go looking for her-- Annie is good at helping me track her down. But that is another milestone we will continue to work on. If I ever do learn to hunt, she will need to be reliable in the field off-leash. (We are both learning together : D )
So anyway, we've had some big adventures over the holiday week (I've been on vacation from work). The other day we all went out shooting as a family. We let the dogs roam off-leash a bit. I actually have Dottie conditioned to a whistle in open spaces. Whenever she got "too far"-- in her case, a hundred yards for now-- we would whistle and call her back. Sure enough, she would about-face and come running back to us, full-tilt, tongue hanging to her knees, eyes sparkling like diamonds, and her flews (the baggy lips of hunting dogs) spreading from ear to ear! It was awesome!
Last night I met up with my sisters to go walking the canyon, and of course, I took the dogs with me. We let Annie trail the leash the whole way, since she is very well trained and responds well to voice commands. But for a short distance I even dropped Dottie's leash and let her trail it along. She moved up ahead to walk with two of my faster (thinner) sisters. Every so often I would holler out for Dottie to "wait," and she came to a complete stop right in her tracks, and not move again until I praised her. Needless to say, my sisters thought that was REALLY cool!
But sometimes I would whistle for her to come back to me. At the whistle, Dottie would immediately about-face and come running back to me as fast as she could. Oh, my sisters were impressed! (And I was sooo proud!)
As we continued up the canyon, however, the brush became thicker off the path, and I knew there were birds roosting in the brush. That's when I had to take up Dottie's leash again and keep hold-- especially since we were in a protected habitat. Sure enough, it was slow going then, because every couple of steps Dottie would go on point, "Birds! Mom, there's birds in there-- c'mon, I'll show you!" LOL, it is about the coolest thing I've ever seen. I don't want to suppress that natural instinct, so I make sure to let her hold her point for a minute, then praise her before moving on. Ordinarily, flushing the birds would be her reward, but I can't do that until we get better at this, and there are some areas it will never be appropriate anyway. So praising is the best I can do for now.
I guess the next phase in Dottie's recall training will be distance. Right now, I can't let her get more than 100 meters away before calling her back. If I have my head in the clouds and forget to pay attention, she will get out of range-- and then I have to have Annie track her down. So that's what we're working on next.
_______________
I have to give credit to Mattie and Nettle on the forum here, for helping me work out a system for training Dottie to stay close. If desired, I would be happy to post the step-by-steps of my process for helping Dottie with both the car chasing, and the staying close range, but I really think it would be best if Mattie posted an article (to be made permanent in the training section) about that. She has helped numerous people with recall, over and over, and yet none of her how-tos have been made into a permanent feature. (Thank you, Mattie and Nettle!)
Emmabeth, do you think you could wave your magical modly wand and move it, please? It would seem our "new house" was not "furnished" with an edit feature. 
Thanks.