Come here... COME HERE... come HERE you little F***ER!!

Poppy's training is going well generally. Although if anything too exciting happens she may still be unable to obey. The thing we are having trouble with is 'come here'. Other commands if she doesn't do what you want, you can enforce, for example if you say sit and she just stares at you you can push her butt down. But by it's very nature 'come here' is a command you are making from a distance. She does come sometimes, but if there is anything more exciting going on - which can include cars, people, smells, butterflies, running like a mad thing and looking at the view - then you haven't got a chance. When walking she will rush off in to the distance having fun running and smelling and doing her own thing ignoring us for periods of time until she fancies saying hi.
All the books, the internet and the vet say 'you must have a solid recall' but they don't tell you HOW to achieve this.
We have today embarked upon a method called 'about turn walking'. The theory is that you stop issuing the 'come here' command for a while and let her do her own thing on walks, but when she heads off one way you go the other very fast with the theory that she basically doesn't want to lose you and will eventually start staying closer to see what you are up to.
You start off by letting her off the lead, she rushes off to do her thing and you head the opposite direction. Eventually she will get bored and look for you and come rushing past. When she does you set off back the way she just came etc and etc. With the theory that over time she is rushing off less and staying closer to see where you are going. Once you get to this stage you are meant to reintroduce the 'come here' but only using it when she is basically heading towards you anyway. Then a bit later you start using it when she isn't heading towards you but she isn't doing anything else much and so has no distractions to stop her coming. Then you progress to using it more and more by which time hopefully she isn't so far off and is paying better attention to what you are up to anyway.
The theory is that the whole process takes about a month at the end of which you should have a dog that doesn't rush away from you on walks and comes when called. Sounds hardwork (and this mornings starter session knackered Doug out) but it will be worth it if we have a dog which isn't a danger to herself and others at the end of it.