Springer obsessed with birds Behaviour

My sweet little 2 yr old springer is obsessed with birds, her parents are both working dogs but she has never been. the problem I have is if I take her to the beach she just chases birds and does not come back till she wants to no matter how much I call her, she even goes out to sea after them. Help would be fantastic if someone could tell me how to try and crack this problem.

I swiped this from an old thread I posted ages ago - does it sound familiar. At the end of the day it's a recall issue and I'd suggest letting her go a little way (perhaps not at the beach to begin with & somewhere without birds) call her back and reward. Keep doing it and over time you can build up longer distances. Might be worth doing it with a whistle as eventually you may need to do it on a noisey beach on a wet windy day. Good luck though as Springers are more headstrong than most breeds especially when it comes to bird chasing.

Anyway - here's that story I was on about......


We were walking (in a storm) on Gruinard Bay - which is a sandy beach in North West Scotland. Fingal often charges out into the waves and loves nothing more than to 'charge' any sea birds that may be nearby. On this particular occassion it was late October, lashing with rain and waves were 'big'. You couldn't hear yourself think for the wind. Anyway - Fingal ran off along the beach and then went off at an angle into the sea. I saw the birds go up into the air and fly off out to sea. Fingal just kept going and going and going. Before we could get to where he had entered the sea - he'd become so far out. He seemed to be miles away. I could just see the top of his head in the distance but he just kept going. We yelled and yelled but it was no good. With the crashing waves and the wind there was no chance of him hearing us. After a few mins we lost sight of him as the waves between he and us were too high. We headed around to higher ground to see that he had 'turned' and was trying to get back to dry land but the sea was pulling him out as fast as he could swim back. He was 100's of yards out by this point bobbing like a cork.

I don't know what I was going to do but I remember evaluating the situation - could I go and get him ? - Should I go and get him ?

It was that horrible jelly legs feeling.

Then the most amazing thing happened. Skye (my other dog) who really doesn't care that much for the sea especially if there's waves - started getting really agitated. He was used to Fingal being 'off for a swim' but he obviously detected our panic and concern. By this point Skye was back on the flexi. We let him go and he went off like a rocket. Not into the sea but off down the beach. He just kept going - off round the 'horseshoe' of the headland. Somehow he knew Fingal wasn't coming back this way. He eventually made it round to a rocky headland (which was actually the other side of Fingal) where he barked and barked. Fingal obviously heard this (because the wind was in the right direction) and headed towards Skye. This time the tide was in his favour. Skye went to meet Fingal once he'd made shallower water - and coaxed him out. Fingal was knackered having spent about 1/2 hour being thrown around in the waves and Skye was all over him like an over protective mother. It was amazing and very strange.

cheers for that . prob is her recall is fantastic until she sees a bird then it does out the window

What an amazing story!

what I do, sometimes I Trot backwards whist calling then they think i'm going without them and come back.
also a sort of high pitched excited voice works well...(reading that I must look really strange when I'm calling my dogs!!! )

What a lovely story (not the going out to sea bit of course!) about your other dog.