Whistle Training for Recalling Dogs

Acme Sonec Working Dog Whistle No 211.5 Purple

Training your dog to come when it’s called is one of the most important things you can teach your canine friend. Not only will this help to keep your pooch under control when you’re out and about it can also help avoid accidents happening, for example, being able to stop your dog from running into the road.

When getting a dog for the first time most people train their dog to respond to its name which usually works well but there may be some times when you are unable to shout or your dog simply can’t hear you. In this situation being able to recall a dog with a dog whistle is a great advantage as a whistle designed specifically for your breed of dog can be heard much further than a human voice.

Being a Labrador Lexi is a gun dog breed so we decided to train her to come to an Acme whistle at 211.5Hz frequency which is the right one for gun dogs. The Acme whistle is easy to blow and produces a high tone with solid tone and single frequency so that it gives a very clear signal to your canine buddy. I got a purple one, as that is my favourite colour, but there are a range of different colours and you can get matching lanyards so you can wear the whistle around your neck for fast, easy access when needed.

We are really lucky that my mother’s two Labradors (both ex working gun dogs) are already whistle trained so training Lexi alongside them has meant she is catching on fast! We make sure that coming to the whistle is associated with receiving a biscuit and Labradors being the greedy breed that they are, this works well.

Lexi is really getting the hang of coming back to us when she hears the whistle and I am hopeful that this will mean easy, fast and most importantly reliable recall for when she is older too. Although we have also trained her to come when she’s called by voice, the whistle training does make me feel a bit more confident about taking her outside off lead.

Have you whistle trained your dog?

Acme Sonec Working Dog Whistle No 211.5 Purple
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