Silent Whistle Training (How I Did It)

[JMFS]

It's been quiet around here and I finished most of my work for the week so I have time on my hands, which means I can write a(nother) post.

 

I Love my silent whistle. It's a fantastic tool when you're in an area where you're not wanting to disturb others when your dogs are off spelunking.

 

• It's not 100% silent
  
• Spend the dollars and get a Good whistle, that $3 whistle from PetSmart did not work for me (and it broke within 2 months and my neighbors complained about it)
  
  Honest-to-goodness I use an ACME silent whistle (it's a real company!), I believe it's the 535 that I purchased from a hunting goods store for around $25 8 years ago and it's been worth every last penny

  
  

• It's not magic, but I've found it to be highly effective
  
• Have lots of small high value rewards ready to speed feed
  
• It will not stop your neighbors' dogs' barking
  

 

There are a couple good videos for this, but this is my favorite, even though she's using a sound whistle:

I love how her dog misbehaves at the beginning because it made me feel so much better that her well-trained dog could be unruly, too. Better yet, she didn't edit it out (I'm going to go ahead and cast my vote for an Adrienne Bloopers video). :D Sometimes I feel like trainers are super humans and it's comforting to see that they can also encounter struggles (dogs don't automatically know the trainer's credentials, you know?).

 

One thing they don't go over in the video is attuning your dog to the whistle (because she's using one with obvious sound). When Fido is asleep you want to blow on the silent whistle. If Fido's ears perk up, good, you found a pitch he'll respond to. If they don't, adjust the whistle and try again until you find the right pitch. Now you're ready for step 2.

 

So, like she says in the video, you use über valuable treats like chicken, steak, cheese, etc . . .. Whatever gets your pup to drooling. Set it up so you can rapid feed. Decide how you're going to blow the whistle for recall. Are you going to do like a cat call (ha), or are you going to do three rapid succession blows, maybe you want to do one long and two short, etc . . .. I do a long followed by a short like you might do whistling with your lips to get someone's attention. Be consistent with that rhythm so your dog learns to love it.

 

Get your dog into a sitting position and do the first whistle, give a treat, whistle, treat, whistle, treat. As soon as Gertie finishes chewing her treat (because she's a lady) I whistle and give her another treat. I rinse and repeat for about 15-20 treats' worth of time and I end with a "Good girl!" I haven't ever been in danger of being light-headed or passing out, like she mentions, from using the whistle so I set the treat limit because that's about how many treats 2 minutes gives.

 

This is the fun part because they may be unsure of what you're wanting so expect some confusion. The next week I had Gertie sit and stay, then I moved about 10 feet away and blew the whistle. She didn't come at first so I blew again a couple times then said "come," and gave her the treat. Walk away, whistle, whistle, come, treat. Rinse and repeat for about 15 treats' worth again. The goal is to get it to where she's going to come when I blow the whistle. When she's doing that consistently I increase the distance. I had the advantage of Momo being trained already and Gertie watched what he did and cheated off his paper.

 

Now I'm able to call Gertie and Momo in when they're getting too wild, or when Gertie is probably rolling in something Momo killed in the bushes (ugh). I reinforce it about once per week, or whenever they start to get "can't hear you" syndrome.

 

Momo caught on quicker than Gertie did so don't be surprised if your dog gets it instantly, or if they take a little prodding. Mo is Super Duper food motivated where Gertie is only highly motivated so Mo will do nearly anything I ask if there's food involved.

 

Oh! You don't have to buy a whistle at all, btw. Abbi is trained to respond to her own special whistle. Yes, you can differentiate whistles so you can call your dogs individually! For Abbi I made up a whistle that I do with my lips and I can wake her from a dead sleep with it. :D

 

Mo had such good recall that I nearly forgot my silent whistle and I was getting frustrated with Gertie's not listening. The whistle was a game changer so I thought I'd share. :)