How long was it before you let your dog off leash?

16bitclaudes
Tue, 05 Sep 2023 12:12:49 +0000

How old were they and how long did it take you to get to a place where you were confident enough in their recall to let your dog(s) run around off-leash at the park or in a field?

My boy is 6 months old now and we've had him with us for 3 months. He's loose/ off-leash at home and his recall/ general engagement at home is very good but obviously there are still lots of exciting distractions out in the wider world. We still do plenty of recall games with him every week to build on it.

At the park we switch to a 15m long leash clipped to his harness and let him trot out in front of us and have a good sniff around. When we find a clear space to have a game of fetch, we'll let go of the leash but leave it attached to the harness just in case we need to stomp on it and retrieve him quickly.

Recall still seems decent at the park but I don't trust him enough to take that leash off completely yet - I don't think he'd come back straight away if there was a football or another dog that he could run to and play with. What have your experiences been like?

Edit: starting to realise this might be a very Europe-centric question, the laws for keeping dogs on a leash/ lead are very different in the UK

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