How to Use Whistle Training with a Farm Dog to Reinforce Boundaries

In this Ashland dog training session we worked with Rex, a one-year-old Great Pyrenees and Neapolitan Shepherd mix, who needed help to stop roaming and going beyond his guardian’s property.

After I arrived I sat down to talk to Rex’s guardian about her main dog behavior concerns. She told me that she wanted to train Rex to stay within their property boundaries and to help him stop roaming. Rex is a trained farm dog who can protect their livestock and keep predators away from their animals. Rex is already doing a fantastic job at that so we just needed to focus on helping him stay closer to the property line. I suggested that we could use a whistle to train him to come back to his guardian. The whistle will provide consistency so anyone can call him back and the noise can travel across greater distances to communicate with Rex. To see how we started to whistle train Rex you can watch the videos below:

Whistle Training: Part 1

Whistle Training: Part 2

As you can see in the videos, Rex is learning how to come back to his guardian or learn the recall when he hears the sound of the whistle. At first we need to pair the whistle with his name to train him to come back when he hears the whistle. After a while you can stop using his name afterwards and just use the whistle. It will be very important to always give him a very yummy treat when he comes back so it reinforces this good behavior.

Another great dog training tip is to always give him yummy treats when he comes back to you and then let him have his freedom back the majority of the time. If every time you call your dog over to you you put them on a leash or restrict their freedom in some way they will be reluctant to come over to you. But if you call them over to you and they get a treat and then get to go back to having fun they will be willing to come over to you again and again- even when you do need to restrict their freedom at times. We wrapped up this dog training session with Rex’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.