My Big Adventure: Ranch Life Puts Off-leash Recalls to the Test

Ranch dogs do not use leashes. photo: AdobeStock

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

This past winter I moved from my adorable, extremely comfortable cottage in downtown Larkspur to live on a 100-acre ranch in Petaluma. The move was initiated by a friend who invited me to join her on a Big Adventure. As it turned out, it wasn’t just an adventure - it was an act of training derring-do with regard to off-leash recalls. Ranch dogs do not use leashes.

As with all good dog training adventure stories, the protagonist must encounter seemingly insurmountable challenges, testing both mettle and ingenuity, before experiencing (often comic) personal growth. When the setting is a ranch, these trials include cattle, massive AWOL flock-guarding dogs, deer, mountain lions, bobcats, thermal lift riders, jackrabbits, and feral bunnies. What?!

I’d always enjoyed walking my dogs off-leash in Marin County, where appropriate. Certain areas have known challenges that I could anticipate and prepare a strategy around. But these challenges didn’t start the second I opened the front door as they do on the ranch. 

My dogs already had a good recall before our ranch life, if you define recall as dogs who always return after you call them. Mine will always come back, if they can. But the two key points here are “if they can” and “how long after you call them.” 

Having grown up on a farm, I have a healthy respect for barbed wire, but that’s a hard concept to communicate to a canine. A dog chasing a jackrabbit or deer in an unknown area can easily become injured or even tangled in barbed wire. Once an off-leash dog leaves his handler’s sight, he becomes vastly more vulnerable unless he wears a satellite-tracking device. This means the dogs and I have been spending a lot of time walking fence lines, learning not to cross just anywhere and, most important, that barbed wire hurts.

One of my dogs, Velo, is a Border Collie/Whippet mix whose form and behaviors suggest that the sighthound genetics prevailed. Petaluma is windy. Thus, raptors and vultures riding the thermal lifts are beautiful and constant denizens of the sky. Habituation and a long line were the behavior modification techniques that tempered my keen-eyed bird chaser’s desire to cross county lines. He now seems to be satisfied with puffing himself up at the raptors perched on fence posts. Compromises. 

Speaking of compromises, Velo’s prey drive isn’t limited to the skies. He is equally lethal (in his own mind) to underground critters. Gophers abound, both in the yard and throughout the ranch. But I don’t discourage his gopher hunting because (a) I really can’t be consistent about it and (b) it’s a static behavior, meaning he won’t leave the ranch to do it. Yes, he could get a puncture wound from a mole or gopher, but that’s a lesser risk than tracking a vulture to the next county over. Besides, if the gophers decided to move out of the yard…well, I really wouldn’t mind.

Another important lesson for ranch life: we do not chase cows. To reinforce this, we’ve spent some quality time counter-conditioning, giving treats for calm, friendly behavior, and playing other games near the cows. Happily, my neighbor Sarah has friendly cows who aren’t afraid of dogs (in fact, it appears at least one of them has some dog handling skills of her own). If my dogs do go out of sight, under no circumstances do I want cattle to be the object of canine fun and games. Not an option.

So what is the training trick to all of this? The magic bullet is differential reinforcement. This means training an acceptable alternative behavior to reinforce while preventing reinforcement from an unwanted behavior, like critter chasing. 

Happily, my dogs already have a strong acceptable alternative behavior (playing with me using toys), which I’ve inculcated since puppyhood and which I quickly pulled out of the training toolbox as soon as we hit the ranch. On our wild walks, there are certain areas where we always stop to play ball. One game we play is called “Face,” which is actually both an established cue and a marker word. As a cue, it means, “Catch a ball thrown directly at your face and return the ball to my hand.” Since they all love the game – the possible danger thrills their athletic, adrenalin junkie souls - it’s also a marker word when I ask for a particular behavior. “Face” indicates a good choice made and that a face throw (reinforcement) is imminent.

I also typically play some ball fetch with them on our walks. This isn’t my favorite game because, if used excessively, it can be unkind to their bodies. But it does redirect their chasing thoughts from critters to balls. The secondary benefit is that our local wildlife can hear the fetch ruckus and make haste to relocate themselves to safety. 

My main goal with game playing is to keep the dogs within visual range while they run around being dogs. Once they start to reach the outer boundaries of my comfort zone, I recall them, and when they turn to run back, I cue “Face,” “Fetch,” or sometimes “Yes,” which means treats rather than a game. After a month of playing this game consistently, my two critter chasers will automatically turn and run back for a reward, while my third good dog prudently stays nearby. With all three dogs, it can cost up to $10 a walk counting toys and treats, but I consider it time and money well spent.

Have mistakes been made? Certainly. In fact, it turns out feral bunnies are the nemesis of the best-laid training plans. The feral bunnies do not behave exactly like other critters. First, they come in bright colors like white, white with brown, or the wrong shade of brown, meaning they’re highly visible. Second, they live quite near the house and other outbuildings so they’re easy pickings. Moreover, no matter how long I keep the dogs distracted, the silly wabbits don’t wisely scurry away. Rather, they hop, hop, hop right into the open, then turn around and watch the dog show. 

One terrible day, early on, three separate bunny chases occurred. On this day, the slow “hop, hop” grabbed the dogs’ attention and off my two chasers went. I didn’t even attempt to recall Velo or Baloo - after all, why ruin a perfectly good recall in an obvious noncompliance situation? Velo thinks he is a stone cold killer and Baloo just likes to chase things so there was no hope I could compete once they were off and running (generally, for recall to really work in these circumstances, you need to spot the prey first and recall before the chase begins). My third dog, Dice, is also a Border Collie/Whippet mix, but he doesn’t seem to have inherited as strong a chase/prey drive as Velo. But that day even Dice took off in a desultory lope after the chasers, probably hoping that someone would just holler “Face” already and let him turn back.

Which brings us to the last piece of the recall puzzle: genetics. Some dogs have a strong chase drive that is intrinsic to their dogly selves. Others, like prudent little Dice, would rather do honest work for a living. Clearly, it’s more challenging to train the former to a reliable recall, especially in such enticing circumstances involving feral bunnies. 

But no matter where a dog falls on the chase scale, it’s important to work on a solid recall. Whether you’re exploring an urban leash-free area or having a Big Adventure on a ranch, this is the single most important skill your dog can learn to stay safe. Isn’t that worth a little time and practice on your part?