Well whilst everyone argues! - a bit of an update for you:

Fred has taken to the whistle and it has got him back from 2 situations that calling him wasn't. I have my chosen toot and it's a definate success: one long, then 3 shorts toots (to be precise)....all in fairly quick succession.

After it working at home and in the garden I decided to take the whistle out with me in the fields just incase I was presented with a situation. Well I was and it gave me the confidence to be a bit freer with him tbh. Anyway the first time I needed to blow was after meeting 2 dogs offlead going in a different direction on their walk. They all said hello offlead and I left it a minute or so before walking off in a different direction. Fred wasn't coming so I blew. He wasn't sure at first so I kept walking and repeated it and he then came. I was aware I didn't want to keep repeating and thankfully it worked after the second attempt.

The second time I need to do it was when he had ran toward and was barking at a horse in a field and I wanted to break his interest as he was at the point of I'm going in to investigate. It worked first time and I got him out of the zone.

So I hope to keep up the good work now and make it solid after the first call. As advised I didn't want to run before I was able to walk. I do only use it when absolutely necessary too - not all the time as verbal commands are fine until the distractions.

At last - we're moving forward......I hope it continues! The advice has been great, many thanks to you all.

Brilliant, and very impressive that you managed to get him away first time from a horse which must've been a huge distraction.

Mm.....don't buy a cheap cruddy whistle!!!! Doesn't work well, the pitch changes and then that = dog ignoring. UGHH!!!!

Back to square one, he knows it means to come now but still a distraction is waaaaaaaaay more interesting.

Proper whistle is on way from Amazon - yay roll on. Got to master this.......he seems to have this ingrained obsession that he finds hard to ignore when desire strikes. You'd swear I kept him away from all the dogs in the world and he didn't play with friends dogs on a regular basis.

Any more tips on this - apart from not to rush it?

Cheers