why does she run off????

I had to shovel snow from the driveway after work yesterday (believe me I'm NOT impressed). I put Max on the flexible lead and attached it to my belt and just left Mindy out since she has SUCH GOOD recall........... I was talking to my neighbour and was mentioning that Mindy seemed to be slowing down a bit with age and no sooner had I said that then she took off like a flash to another yard on the street and started zooming around. The neighbour said "Well she doesn't look too slow to me". Little brat didn't come right away but luckily she didn't run out of sight and she did come fairly shortly. She must have been saving up all that energy for a couple of days. We live on a court with only a few houses and several small kids so people are really careful but all the same I'm glad she didn't wander out of my sight.

Please don't laugh, but I trained 6 cats ( yes cats, not cavs) to come in whenever I whistle.... I only ever let them out just before mealtimes, first on leashes and then without. From being small kittens they associated whistling with going in the house and getting a slap up meal. Now they come whenever I whistle the 'special whistle'.... though it usually IS before a meal, and I guess you would end up with one fat dog if you did that every time

I followed an earlier poster's advice about training in an unfenced area with a long lead. I have about a 20 ft. canvas lead. I took Daisy in the front yard twice in the last couple of days and she did really, really well. She never offered to run away even once. I ended up doing lots of heeling, downs from far away with a hand signal, and lots and lots of stays and comes, all without even holding the lead at all. She did so well, I was just proud as punch. No dogs or cars came by during all of this, though, so it wasn't her most challenging distractions by any means.

The only rub is that she will do these things pretty reliably for treats, but in an emergency if I'm without a treat, I don't know how it would work out. But at least I've got enough renewed hope that I'm working on things with her again.

We've always been good at not letting her bolt out the door when we go out for walks, and she's awesome at waiting till I say OK, but when there is a person at the door, she wants to run out and see them and I'm always afraid if I let her go out on the porch to say hi like she wants, she might then see a car or a dog out on the road and bolt.

Its been good to read all the posts here & realise that the problem of dogs running off is common to many of you, i thought it was just me & my harry!
Harry was coming on just fine his recall was good & walks out with him running off the lead were such a pleasure for me & him. But sadly he has run off now on quite a few occasions sometimes staying in vision but totally ignoring any calls from us, sometimes disappearing from view for what seems like forever which is so scary. It has come to the point that i,m just too scared to let him off now. I am determined to crack this, the advice i have been reading here is great & i,m putting a lot into practice. But i know from past experience that harry will behave perfectly for weeks but how can i ever get over the fear that on one of the walks he will just take off again? I feel the problem is as much with me as it is with Harry. Harry is still less than 2 years old is this something that should improve as he gets older?

It will only improve from training and regular practice and making sure not to make common mistakes like scolding a dog when he finally returns -- or when you go get him when he hasn;t returned. Doing either simply teaches a dog that sometimes you randomly get angry or punish and make him wary of returning at all-- yet it is so common to see people giving out to their dogs for not coming on recall! There are some great advice articles on recall in the training sites pinned in the training section.

Some dogs are just poor on recall, full stop. Really with an unreliable dog, you'd be better getting a long flexilead for the times when you are somewhere safe for him to wander off yet still be under control. Or by a 25m long lead used by trainers -- tough a Flexi is easier to manage for a small breed like a cavalier. You need to know he is reliable *before* allowing him offlead and that means more than a week of good results; it does take time and practice. Like housetraining it is easy to assume the dog is trained when he really isn't!

Of course a dog should never be off lead in areas around roads -- any dog no matter how well trained will have something that can tempt him to run off unexpectedly and it needs just one slip-up to be dead -- and this is never worth the risk. Save the Flexi or off lead walks for trained dogs to areas far from roads or other unsafe places.