Training the recall with a whistle
One useful training aid is a professional dog whistle. I don't mean one of those silent ones that you so often see on sale but a proper dog whistle with a lanyard. The advantage over the silent one is that you can hear it as well so that you know exactly how it sounds. For the recall, the traditional signal is a series of pips. In theory the dog hears the pips and comes racing out of the bushes towards you. I thought I'd try this with Jamie and Sasha as I liked the idea of an instant recall. The whistle I bought was made by Clix. I didn't realise it had a top that you take off so I stood there like an idiot asking how you use it. (I'm getting older, I can't help it.)
Having worked out the basics with help from a husband with a degree in the bleedin' obvious I went into the garden and tried it out on the dogs. I had plenty of treats and the training was quite straightforward. If you want to do likewise I'm assuming that you have already taught your dog some sort of recall and you've used a hand signal as well as your voice. All you need to do is to associate the whistle with your normal recall.
Within minutes Sasha was bounding towards me in response to the whistle, but Jamie looked a bit dubious. Maybe it's his age. A little while later we took the whistle on our usual walk. Sasha disappeared into the bushes and I gave a series of short pips on the whistle. She came flying back in no time and the whistle trick seemed little short of a miracle. He of the dubious degree was most impressed. He took this little video clip later on when I wasn't looking.
To get a reliable recall with the whistle you will need to practice. Use treats and also use a toy but make sure that the dog comes straight to the whistle. Always praise as soon as you get the response that you want. In the clip I praised Jamie as well, even though he was only few paces behind me he still caught up when he heard the whistle. Once we have a completely reliable whistle recall I'll be teaching the dogs to stop to a whistle command as well.
The Clix professional dog whistle is available from ebay.