Six months ago I adopted a year-old bitch from a shelter. She'd been in various shelters and foster homes for her whole life. She was already house-trained, leash and crate trained and has a lovely temperament. She learns fast and behaves beautifully around the house and out on walks when she's leashed. However, it's a different story when she's off-leash. She won't come when she's called - at least she'll come but not close enough to let me capture her. She does eventually come when SHE'S ready, but not when I want her to. She's half Basenji and needs to run so I don't want to keep her leashed all the time, but this is a problem. In the past I always had German Shepherds and had no problems with them, but I'm aware that sighthounds are a different story! Any advice please?

I'm sure you know this already, but make yourself a more appealing option than running about by keeping a bag of treats on your person. When she comes close, feed her a treat every now and again, when she comes when called she gets a treat, just generally reward her being close to you and it'll become second nature. You can train her to come when you whistle this way too, which is useful if she's likely to take off on you, Fenton style.

Also, you need to get her to come to you, and NOT capture her, so that she doesn't automatically think when she comes to you, fun time is over. Train her by calling her over and just giving her a treat and making a fuss a few times per session. You can clip the lead on, and take it off again too to show her getting the lead on isn't necessarily the end of the fun.

Good advice. Sighthounds can be difficult to train to recall. When they run a wee trigger flicks in their brains and if they're chasing something they are completely focused, it's just their instinctive prey drive. If you don't have an enclosed area to allow him to run then you can work on recall but be aware that if he sights a rabbit or something he won't come back till he's done.

You could also try a long training lead in the house and garden and work on it with tasty treats. Remember extending leads are not recommended for sighthounds - when you have a dog that can hit 40mph in 6 seconds reaching the end of the lead abruptly can cause some serious damage.

We had similar problems with our last dog - sadly he thought it was much more fun to get close then run away again. Treats (or eventually just shaking the box of treats) were the only thing that really worked.

I am using a whistle, much louder then a voice and it does not portray emotion (like being frustrated when the dog does not come striaght away), and also have treats. Sometimes you need to have high value treats like chicken pieces or cheese so that it makes it more appealing to come to you. We also sometimes run the opposite way or crouch down. The dog is wondering what you are doing and come to you. Always praise him highly when he is close, dont tell him off. I think with a dog that has been in lots of different homes it will take a bit longer.
Good luck.

Sighthounds are usually foodhounds - the treats should do the trick

Thanks for all the good advice everyone - I'll keep you posted!

You could try a very, very long lead, and keep making sure the dog comes back to you when you call.

Very tempting treats are also a good idea. I used cooked chicken to start with, my dog couldn't resist me.

Agree with the run the other way advice, it worked a treat for my dobe. She hated thinking she might be missing something, try to squeak as if you are excited about something in that direction.

My Chorkie is the same. I would never dare let her off lead in public, as I can't get her to come to me when she's in the garden!

Different breeds have different characteristics. Labradors are easy to train, they're an obedient breed of dog. We have Cairns and they're bred as an independent working dog. When they get off lead, they can be quite disobedient and will not come back when called, sometimes even our well trained (ex-show) dog is totally disobedient. When I do get a hold of them again though, I never punish them as that would make them scared to come back. I ought to take treats out with me, really. I just keep them on the lead all of the time, or I put our active one on a training lead and then let her run, she is easy to get hold of again with the lead.

Get one of those 50ft horse lunge reins. I got one for about ten quid off the internet. At the very least you've got more chance of grabbing hold of it if the bugger runs off.
I trained my boxer with one by having a friend hold him, then I would apply gentle pressure on the lead from about 20ft away and call him and generally act like a maniac, waving my arms around and shouting in a high pitch voice, to make me seem really interesting, then give him tons of fuss and his favourite treat when he got to me. I also trained him with a clicker and whistle.

The downside is I now have a fat dog who refuses to come anywhere near me on the field if he knows I haven't brought treats out with me. We go for extra long walks now but he always lags behind and if I look round at him he stops as if to say ''can we go back now?''