I thought we were getting somewhere as for the past week she has had a play with a few dogs and then come away when i called her, but this morning she went off to play with another dog and literally wandered off a few hundred yards with it and i had to walk after her to get her attention to come back to me.
Is it just a chase of keeping pushing on with the training and one day it will all fall into place or is there something i can do to help this along?
I was taught that one should make 3 things clear to a dog so that they will come when called:
Number 1: good things happen when you come (praise/food/toys).
Number 2: bad things happen when you don't come (game over/no food/no toys/etc...).
Number 3: Coming when called doesn't necessarily mean that you can't go back to what you were originally doing in the first place.
Perhaps your dog is beginning to fail to come when called off playing with other dogs, because she's learned that when you call the game is over?
I randomly call my dogs when playing with other dogs or with each other, but allow them to return to their play so that they never get it into their heads that I'm the one always putting an end to their fun and games.
Personally, I train my dogs to completely ignore other dogs on a short lead before progressing to ignoring them on a long line and eventually to off-lead obedience. It's so much more difficult to train for appropriate behaviors once a dog has made a habit of doing something like running off after strange dogs. A long line give your more control when training and makes it so that the always dog succeeds in recall training even if it's only because you're guiding her back in.
A reliable recall is never something that just falls into place or something a dog grows into. It's something you have to work on from day one and reinforce every day of a dog's life.
