Stumped.

Question
Hi there,
Please excuse the length here. I feel like the situation needs a bit of a buildup. But thank you ahead of time for reading through it and helping me out.

I have a year old Pit/Springer mix (female, spayed, previously a stray in Philly) and do not have a fenced back yard (it's kind of fenced, but ineffectively). There is no street access from our property, but the neighbor is separated from us only by a very big hedge and her yard has direct street access.

I took Madge on this summer and have trained her to the point where she has an awesome recall rate and is generally very respectful and polite to me, my roommates, and new people. She is reliable with 'leave it,' 'drop,' 'wait,' and waits until I tell her to 'come through' when coming inside from the back yard, as well as getting on and off of furniture/walls/etc. and the basic sit.

She has a very high prey drive and is very difficult to distract once she fixates (on a cat, groundhog, blowing leaf, etc.). I usually have to drag her out of sight of whatever it is and then praisepraisepraise when she turns her attention back to me. Problem one.

I have able to drop the leash let her run around the yard trusting that my voice could down her almost instantly, or at the very least have her coming right back to my feet. We had never had a problem with this. However, she stops listening entirely when her leash is unclipped. I don't know why, but because of this I leave the leash on when she's in the yard. It also allows me to grab her if I need to, so I'm fine with that arrangement.

Recently though, I brought her into the parking lot adjacent to our house (still 'off leash', keeping her with me with my voice) to help a friend with her car. Since then, she's been testing the boundaries of the back yard (nosing through the fence holes, trying to get down to the other neighbors yard behind us, down the alleyways...)and if just calling her doesn't elicit much of a reaction I've had to go pick up the leash, give her a firm 'leave it,' and keep her with me while she does her business. This is the second issue, foreshadows the third, and begins to make me question the amount of respect she shows inside. She is very polite and obedient inside.

During the summer a very big hedge served as a 'fence' between ours and our neighbors yard, but it's now winter and we can see through the branches to their property. Today she saw a cat. Yeah. That prey drive kicked in, she fixated, and from across the yard I yelled her name in that voice that has ALWAYS previously downed her or had her turn attention to me. Nothing. Off she went, into the neighbors yard, chasing this cat.

Now I get that the cat-chasing is innate and very difficult if not impossible to train out of her, so I wasn't so bothered by that. What bothered me was the game of 'you can't catch me' that then ensued and her sudden ignoring every command I'd ever thrown at her. This makes me question how much she respects me even more.

I didn't chase her, just kind of walked about in her general direction using a very firm voice. She would run around to the other side of a car, look at me, run around the other way. La la la.

Eventually I stepped on the leash and was able too drag her back off to our yard. I high collared her (just a short, sharp pull on her choke chain) right when she tried to dash away from me at the last minute and then walked her inside. She could tell I was annoyed, but went through the coming inside routine and went to sleep under the table quietly at my feet.

My main question is this: in instances where like this where she outright ignores me, what should I do? I believe primarily in positive reinforcement, but with behaviors like this I feel like just enforcing the good behavior doesn't let her know that THIS is unacceptable. However, I'm hesitant to discipline her because I don't want her to associate the reprimand with me catching her. Really I should be praising her when she comes back, but since she didn't come back and I had to physically jump on the leash and grab it as she tried to trot off again, I didn't really feel like praise was due.

In the past with my other dogs, if they got out I would simply stand in one spot and wait for them to give up the 'chase me' act and praise the hell out of them when they came back. But that was in suburbia where the worst thing they could run into was an errant deer. Here there are big cars right there. That was my main fear when I was catching her, and that urgency is why I didn't just wait for her to come back on her own.

I have always reinforced her staying by me outside and coming back when called. Little treats sometimes for checking in while romping, sometimes when she comes, and sometimes when she just comes and sits by me outside. I like her to know that being by me is the best place to be, even when we're outside, and until this point it has worked.

I also believe that she should respect me as her 'leader' and the bringer of superyummies. I don't alpha roll or force that respect, but I let her know that I'm the one in charge of her daily life and she is very respectful of that indoors. We have also developed a praise-oriented dynamic where she learns to do things because it's in HER best interest (more superyummies!). Not sure if this is respect or just giving into the system when we're inside and I am totally in control of the situation.

Hmph. I'm going to be keeping ahold of the leash when we're in the back yard from now on simply because I don't trust her right now, but I'd love if you could give me any advice on working on this behavior, as I believe it's very important if she's to go off leash ANYWHERE in the future.

Thanks so much,
Nay

Answer
First, this isn't a matter of "respect", it's a matter of what's most reinforcing to your dog at that particular moment in time.  And when it comes to a choice of chasing a cat, or getting praised for coming back to you, the chase is going to take precedence.  Dogs don't think in the future of what the consequences might be.  Grabbing her collar and giving a correction when you DO catch her will only increase the amount of keep-away she plays.  She WILL remember that part!  

Keep her on leash.  Work on your recall in the yard using her favorite food (pea-sized pieces of hot dog, cheese, beef, etc.) when she's hungry. Use a long line (15-20') and get rid of the choke chain.  If you have to grab the line, you don't want her getting hurt.  

I liked the description of your leadership program.  It's a great start, but you're also going to have to build value into your relationship outside.  Management is key - don't allow her the opportunity to make a mistake.  When you work outside, along with your best treats, consider what is most reinforcing to her at the moment.  It may be the opportunity for a chase game - with you!  Call her, turn and run the other direction, fall to the ground, wrestle, give treats, play tug.  Become just as interesting and fun as chasing the cat.  Develop games for outside where she can instinctively chase, hunt, grab and "kill" her prey.  Flirt poles, tug toys, squeaky toys can be things that you can train with outside.  

I've just started taking an online course which is awesome for teaching a reliable recall. It sounds like you're really dedicated to working with your dog and using positive methods to teach her, so I'm going to recommend it to you.  It's Susan Garrett's Recallers course.  The goal is off leash control for your dog wherever you are.  If fencing isn't an option for you, this class will certainly give you the skills to gain that control.  Susan offers lots of free videos and advice on the web, so if you google her name, you should get lots of great stuff to start on.  She's got a great blog, too.  She's an agility competitor, but as a means to get a great agility dog, she concentrates on focus and recall and being the "keeper of the dog's joy" - just what you want to be!

Here's some references:
http://www.clickerdogs.com/perfectrecallaccount.htm
http://susangarrettdogagility.com/

Good luck.  Let me know if you have questions or comments.