I have a wonderful little girl called Daisy who is just coming up 9 months now, shes a cross with mum a Lab and Dad a Cocker.
Now up until around 7 months Daisy was doing amazingly, she had gone through training to nail the basics including what we thought was a strong recall. She could be let off the lead in pretty much any environment and you could be pretty confident that she would not shoot off and if tempted could be called back - she was coming along perfectly.
Then one day at around 7 months something in her just seemed to 'switch on'. We live near the coast in Cornwall so our default walk has always been the beach, in actual fact getting her to go for a walk at all in the first 3-4 months could be a chore with us having to carry her on more than a few occasions due to a lack of enthusiasm.
She had plenty of contact with birds in the past however in recent months has taken to chasing them irrespective of where they are, they could be 200m away on the other side of the beach and she's away, could be 40 feet in the air and she running around in circles yelping (not barking) yelping shes so desperate to get to them. When in this state getting her to recall seems to be IMPOSSIBLE, the bigger issue is the danger she places herself and me in as I have had to rescue her from the water a few times now as she seems to have no sense of danger when she gets into this state.
Normally I would just put this down to training and book more lessons with somebody and try to get it nailed, problem is i'm not convinced this would work. She is so obedient and well behaved in pretty much all other scenarios where 'Birds' are not involved that its clear she knows what she should do just cant help herself. We now walk her in near by fields and woods where she is golden.
I'm looking for some advise on whether this is the kind of behaviour that will sort itself out or if there is any specific training technique or regime I can try to strengthen the recall.
Any ideas or recommendations based on your own experiences would be great appreciated
