Dickens Comes Home

[take4roll10]

It's a holiday miracle, a Dickens's classic!

Thank goodness you entitled this thread "Dickens Comes Home" or my heart would've been pounding while reading the first post. Always happy to know the ending ahead of time....

So happy Dickens somehow made it home safe and sound. Safe to say, Dickens has probably lost his off-leash privileges and a recall refresher is in order.

 

[PatC]

What a relief! I was so glad to read the happy ending.

The off-leash thing is tough to navigate. My three are glued to me...except when they aren't. The very quiet clang of a trash can lid during a walk once made one of mine take off at 50 mph in terror. Fortunately, he was leashed and so didn't get very far...but if he hadn't been, he would have been in the next county before I knew what hit me.

 

[Mignarda]

Is there any chance that Dicken's long distance sight didn't id you as his person and once spooked and running it is hard to stop their fear? Dogs don't have the same long distance sight that humans do...one study I read said they see clearly to only about 25' away and then things get blurred. Was Dickens really far ahead of you when this happened? Our Sketch, esp, doesn't id us by sight until we are really close to him...about 10'. We have to talk to him to let him id us by voice long before his eyes do the id for him.

Trini

When I first saw him about fifty yards away I called to him and blew his dog whistle. He stopped for about twenty seconds and looked right at me, but didn't respond; I'm assuming that he didn't recognize me. It might very well be that at that distance his vision wasn't accurate enough to discern me, although his hearing wouldn't have been affected.

Another thing that occurred to me (perhaps a long shot) was that since I trained him to the whistle by calling him from the yard to the house, he thought that the whistle meant he had to go home.

His demeanor didn't appear frightened, but rather, suggested that he was on some kind of mission that he was determined to fulfill.

 

[Mignarda]

What a relief! I was so glad to read the happy ending.

The off-leash thing is tough to navigate. My three are glued to me...except when they aren't. The very quiet clang of a trash can lid during a walk once made one of mine take off at 50 mph in terror. Fortunately, he was leashed and so didn't get very far...but if he hadn't been, he would have been in the next county before I knew what hit me.

Shelties really are a skittish lot, aren't they? I have a suspicion they may be closer to their wild counsins than we think.

 

[Ann]

What a story, and thank heaven for the happy ending. What a smart boy Dickens was to make his way home! It's always incredible to me how dogs can travel areas they've never been to find their homes and people. Good boy, Dickens!

I've been burned a few times with the off-leash thing, although thankfully, never to the point where one has been lost. We live in an area with lots of woods on all sides, and I love to walk there with the dogs. They can be spooked or moved to chase by anything from a squirrel to birds in the brush. But once gone, a dog could be anywhere very quickly, and we're loaded with coyotes and bear. For my own peace of mind, I've given up the off-leash walks and use a flexi-lead to give them some room to roam. They don't seem to mind and enjoy the walks just as much. At least I know for sure they're coming home with me.

I'm so glad Dickens made his way home to you!

 

[trini]

I've been burned a few times with the off-leash thing, although thankfully, never to the point where one has been lost. We live in an area with lots of woods on all sides, and I love to walk there with the dogs. They can be spooked or moved to chase by anything from a squirrel to birds in the brush. But once gone, a dog could be anywhere very quickly, and we're loaded with coyotes and bear. For my own peace of mind, I've given up the off-leash walks and use a flexi-lead to give them some room to roam. They don't seem to mind and enjoy the walks just as much. At least I know for sure they're coming home with me.

Ann, same situation here. We have just over 100 acres of wilderness land bordering a huge beaver marsh in the Adirondack Mts 50 miles north of our home and we used to take our dogs up there and let them off lead. They were always good and stayed close to us as we hiked the land. Then one day something spooked my little Fable, she was my absolutely most reliable dog who would turn on a dime and come back to me "no matter what"... or so I thought. That day she just ran seemingly completely deaf to my calling... luckily we caught up with her when she had stopped to investigate a rabbit borrow over a mile away down the dirt road that leads from the town into our land. After that fright 14 years ago, none of my dogs are ever off lead unless in a safely fenced area...99% of the time they would be fine...but it is that 1% that to me simply isn't worth the risk. And, like yours, they honestly seem perfectly happy to be on lead since they normally would be right near us anyway.

Trini