13/04/2025
Doing some practice of Rodger recalling around deer. This area is fields and scrub where he can be safely offleash with no livestock. The only issue is the resident deer. In this video we are at the end of a fairly long walk where we have seen a few deer and practiced this behaviour a few times. I'm looking for the moment he turns towards me, rather than focusing on the sight or scent of the deer. It's a bit of risk leaving him off leash when we can see the deer, but as you can see by his response at the end I'm pretty confident of his whistle recall. The deer decided to run back up the track towards us, hence the whistle and slightly panicked cues! The eagle eyed among you will spot that he was actually turning to come to me before I whistled, clever boy! I put Rodge on lead, and it passed within about 10 feet of us, running away from another dog walker coming up the track towards us. I found it interesting that the other walker had an on leash Golden Retriever, but the deer obviously judged us safer to pass than them. Both deer were young bucks, btw, I would have tried to avoid them entirely if they had been does at this time of year.
