Hey guys,

Just a quick check to see if i am going in the right direction. We've been working on recall for a while now, a long while. Daisy knows what it means, and obeys most of the time. However, we are getting in situations now whereby she'll be several meters away from us, 15-20 maybe and a dog will apear on the otherside of the road. Ears go up and she leans forward slightly, we say "Daisy, No!" and the ears lower. But then she look back at us, looks at the dog, then looks back at us. We say "Daisy, come here", initially in a nice playful voice. Once again, she looks at us, looks at the dog across the street and takes 1-5 steps towards the dog. "DAISY ! No!, Leave", She looks back at us, takes another few steps, "Come here!".... ect ect, usually resulting in Daisy trotting towards whatever she wanted to go see.

First, a little background. Daisy will ignore "Daisy, come" commands in a nice playful voice 90% of the time. We taught it with treats and toys and "Come" has not resulted in going on the lead or a telling off or anything like that. However, "Daisy, COME HERE!" in a really horrible, growling voice has about a 80% success rate.....bit horrible to have to do that every time you want her to come but hey, it works.

So back to the scenario, I belive Daisy is deliberately being defiant. She knows what she's meant to be doing, she weighs up the pros and cons (cheese or random treat : Greet dog, potentially have a run-about) and often chooses to disobey. She also does this with commands like 'sit' and 'down'. We'll say the command, and shell lean forward to smell if there are any treats on us, THEN decide weather or not to perform.

ALSO, as a final issue. Daisy has decided that she owns certain parts of the field we often frequent. Any dog attempting to enter this area of the field will be challenged immidiately ! Now shes a 16 month Labrador bitch so there are several dogs that take absolutely no notice of Daisy's warnings and stroll into 'her area' and should Diasy attack, they'll put her right in her place with little trouble. She'll then sneak off to another part of the field where she can sniff and eat some grass. However, some dogs are more polite and Daisy will take full advantage of this and attack, growling, pinning them to the floor and biting ignoring all yelps and cries.

The way i have been handling this is letting Daisy off the lead as soon as we enter the Park, as she ignores my commands when off the lead 90% of the time i have given up with the "NO"'s and the "Leave's". As soon as Daisy exhibits a behaviour i do not want i give a loud sharp "Oi!" which will often make her stop (unless shes attacking something). If she ignores me or does this action a second time, its lead on, straight home, no stopping for smelly lamposts, fast paced, TIGHT heel.

I have tried treats, my god we have gone through buckets of various treats with clickers, training lines, toys, fussings everything i can read about and they all work. Unless she decides that she isnt up for human interaction today. Then we may aswell not exist.

Many books i read say that a 'decent' trainer will have a mix of +'ve & -'ve reinforcement techniques at thier disposal. Of course it is inhumane to scald a dog for poor recall if you have not taken the time to teach it exactly what you want. But there is little space for +'ve reinforcement for a dog that knows EXACTLY what you want of it and makes a conscious decision to defy you. Now they only thing i can think of to teach Daisy that just because she is not attached to me via a lead, does not mean she is out of reach of reprimand. I realise 99.9% of you reading this are going to suggest that i simply reward the good behviour. But sometimes she does not want the reward and i honestly believe there is nothing else in this world more appealing to Daisy than another dog or a smelly patch of grass. Cheese, chicken, kongs, frisbees, bones, dog chocolate, Salami, Liver, Kidney, Lamb, Beef, Gucci Handbags, NOTHING.

So finally the point of this post. How do you defeat the defiant dog ? Please dont reply with the "maybe you havent reinforced the behviour enough" if you dont believe me i will take video. I'll shout "come" in a lovely voice, she will run towards the dog, have a smell and bow to play. If the dog is not interested in her she will immediately come bolting back to me full speed, sit infront and wag tail as if to say 'There, i came, lets have the treat'

I worry because of course, using my current method of training which is, 'Do what i want and you get treat, disobey me and we go home' often cuts her exercise time per day by quite alot !!'

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Handle every stressful situation like a dog; If you cannot eat it or play with it, simply pee on it and walk away !