Do Silent Dog Whistles Work ?

[Christina77]

Just saw some for sale and wondered if they actually work ? My girl is reasonably good at recall until she's on a scent , she knows I'm calling her and it's a case of "Yeah just a minute"

So I thought a change or additional training to a recall of "come" mind jolt her a bit , but do these whistles work ok with dogs ? Any special ways of using them , or how not to use them etc ?

Edited October 2, 2008 by Christina77

[VJB]

I bought one a week ago, and have been just using it around the house, playing hide/seek etc and she is responding very well,,,,, but outside the front yard, or elsewhere, I cannot risk it yet, so I'd really like to hear what others say too.

[Echo]

I taught my dogs to respond very well by using food treats.

Start off in the house. While you are close to the dog and with the dog facing you, blow, then treat immediately. Repeat several times in a row, so the dog begins to associate the sound with a treat.

Then move on:

Wait for the dog to lose interest in you, and when it starts to walk off, blow again. As soon as the dog returns, treat.

Keep the whistle and treats with you whenever you can, and practice as often as you can.

It only took a couple of days to get a quick and reliable response, with the whistle being blown from different places in the house.

After the conditioning was done inside, I moved it to outside.

If I was out in the yard with the dogs, I would wait until they were away from me, then blow and treat as soon as they came.

If the dogs were out, and I was inside:

At random times throughout the day, I would step outside and blow the whistle. Then treat as soon as they came.

Because I have four dogs, and they are all highly motivated by food, it soon became a bit of a competiton to see who could get to me first, even though they all recieved a treat. So the speed involved in responding is fantastic.

We have a very long driveway, and I mainly use it to bring the dogs back up to the house when visitors arrive at the gate.

If I were to yell at them to come, everyone in the neighbourhood would be able to hear me yelling at the dogs.They will respond to this first time, every time.

They also respond just as well when we are out on walks, and can hear it from a long distance.

I have been able to call them off a chase (rabbit) when in full flight.

Just remember to use the treats a lot, until your dog is responding reliably, then cut them down to random rewards.

Julie

Edited October 2, 2008 by Echo

[beddieX]

Just saw some for sale and wondered if they actually work ?

Yes, although I've had one dog that took against them. One caveat, if you drop them the pitch can change. You can't hear them well enough to know the difference but the dog can and may well not recognise it. Avoid the adjustable type for the same reason.............

[Christina77]

Oks Thank you , I'm going to get one and do a new level of training , my ACD thinks she knows it all now and is being

a bit mmmm ...a typical teenage girl

[WalandLibby]

I love the way Echo describes teaching the recall. Makes the point that it's not the tool that is most significant, it's the way you teach.

The benefits of using a whistle include: it carries over more distance than voice, does not require the dog to be looking at you to be aware of it, and it is something new that they haven't yet learned is meaningless (as can sometimes happen with voice).

A poor recall is usually just evidence that the dog doesn't not have a strong expectation that hearing the sound and being near you equals good things - better things than what they were doing in the first place. The only way to build that expectation is to make the sound and give your dog good things and then progressively teach it to work harder in order to get to you for those good things.

I'd say - keep the level of reward high, if the quality of the response (once learned) deteriorates, it tells you that a higher level of reinforcement is needed (either that the association of sound+closeness to owner=reward is breaking down, or because what they're doing is more rewarding than what they expect if they come to you).

[Lablover]

Dogs can hear higher frequency sound, ie the silent whistle. However for dog training at a distance (factors including wind, heat of gound, ambient heat, cover, splashing through water etc) higher frequencies do not travel as far as low freqencies.

The low frequency whistles are easier for us to gauge.