First walk advice/insight.

Pepper had her 2nd vaccination today, so it is now only 5-7 days until we can go out

We've been doing lead training in the garden and around the house so we are good to go on that front. When running through the dos and donts at the vets this morning the vet said that her first walk out we should let her off the lead.

I just wanted to get some advice on if this is a wise thing to do or not. She said that if I don't do it straight away by the time I do I'm going to have a teenager that refuses to return to me.

Thoughts???

on our first walk with howie we let him off the lead and he was amazing, we would let him get a few yards infront of us then call him back and give him lots of praise and a nice treat, the earlier you do it the better.
try and do it with as little distractions as possible for the first few times.

If you dnt feel confident enough theres always the option of a long training line plenty of praise when the dog comes back to you and perhaps a high value treat such as sausages only use the sausages for the recall.

my logic was that i could run faster then howie so if he didnt come back i could catch him, not sure that would be thecase now!!

even my mia whos 12 can beat me ive yet to see anyone outrun a staffordshire bull terrier they never seem to tire

We let Theia off lead straight away too. Like you say, you can out run them at that age. We took her to a cycle path where she only really had two ways to go, forward or back. Also if there's two of you one can go forward and call her back and forth.
You'll probably find that a young pup in the big bad world for the first time won't want to be too far from you.
Pete

Practicing with the lead on is a great start. We only ever let Suki off lead in a fenced in area because it avoids potential incidents and is safer for her as well.

I let puppies off straight away as well. They don't have the confidence to go far from you and for me it's the best opportunity you have to teach them how to walk off lead. Pick your spot and your time carefully. Find somewhere where there is nothing really exciting going on, where there aren't too many other dogs and obviously somewhere safe- not near a road is the obvious one.

Have faith in yourself and she will have faith in you.

What I'd do already in the house and garden is start on recall. Stand by her and say 'Pepper come'. When looks at you give her a treat. Repeat this a few times and she'll know that 'Pepper come' means there's a treat in it for her. Then move away a bit and call her again. Gradually make it further and in different places, and work for just a couple of minutes at a time but a few times a day, and you'll soon have a dog who comes to call.

When you are out with her, from the first walk, practise recall. She might be a bit bamboozled by all the new sights and smells so only call her when she's paying attention to you. Never call her when you think she's not listening or won't come as you can then start to teach her that she can ignore you if she doesn't come. Set yourselves up to succeed easily and you should soon have rocket recall that's the envy of all.

Thank you everyone.

She is a very clingy pup so I've no doubt that she won't be far from my side (in the same way I've not moved for an hour because she's leaning on me asleep ) but at the same time she is extremely curious and it's in those moments she becomes really brave and yes she is faster than me!