Pets Lost and Found

posted by Marita on Mar 11

I teach all my dogs to respond to a simple sports whistle. (Referees whistle, available from any sports outlet) We never use the whistle for normal calling. They were taught that when the whistle goes, it is serious business, it is emergency time, no excuses whatsoever will be accepted and they have to come to us that very instant.

I would start them off as follows: When wanting to close the house for the night, I would allow them to go for a run outside. I will give them time to wander off and then suddenly blow the whistle hard. They would come back the first time because they are curious about the strange noise. Those that do not come right away gets locked out for five or six minutes. Those that do come right away, will get a reward in the form of lavish praise and a small bite of something really special, like a piece of biltong or steak. They very quickly learn to come when the whistle blows. I start cutting down on the treats after a while and increase the praise.

Be inventive in your training and use things that your dog really loves to do or to eat to initially get them to respond to the whistle.

If your dog likes to go for a drive, it is also a good time to use the whistle. Blow on the whistle to call the dog to the car. Let him or her get in right away. It is important that they associate the whistle with pleasant experiences. They need to be happy to respond to the whistle quickly, to ensure the success of this method.

We do a lot of wild camping and all our dogs always goes camping with us. We allow them to roam freely and to come and go as they please. However, when “The Whistle” goes, they drop everything and anything that has caught their fancy and come to us immediately, no matter how far they have wandered off, no questions asked. They run !

Recently, on a camping trip, we made a pee-pee stop in the veldt. Pepper, our Merle Great Dane, suddenly dashed after a small buck that jumped out of the short shrub next to the road. This was on the West Coast, with no fences in sight. Now, I tell you with the buck going at the speed of light and the dog as fast as the buck on those long legs, they were a huge distance from us, before anyone of us could even blink. Luckily, I had “The Whistle” on a string around my neck. The first piercing blow had Pepper stopped in her tracks. She came back instantly, although very disappointed. We made her instant obedience a pleasure by praising and giving her one of our sandwiches. She will certainly be obedient again the next time around. All this happened so fast, that the other three dogs did not even realize that Pepper was chasing something.

A few years ago, Caesar Zandberg, a safari tourist operator, lost his dog in a similar occurrence. His dog chased after a herd of Springbok in the Kaokoveld in the North Western parts of Namibia. He radioed for assistance from other operators and people living in the area. They hounded all the villages, kraals and settlements for weeks. The dog was completely lost. He and his wife were devastated. The dog was their only “child”.