shadyridge

Ok whats the best way to teach a dog focused heeling? Starting Sheamus on his OB work and trying to get him to do this is like pulling teeth.

ames

I started in little squares. One step and a time. Move up one step move right move left and I would wait an wait. Now my boy can do a pretty good size area and stay focused not perfect but working on it.

__________________
“When you KNOW better you DO better.”
― Maya Angelou

Celestial88

Michael Ellis has some nice videos, if you insert "michael ellis heeling" into Youtube's search bar you'll find a lot.


I trained it a very different way but it's harder to explain. Easier to explain if you're familiar with free shaping though.

__________________
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
-John Wooden

performanceknls

What I do with my dogs and what I teach my students is one step heeling. But first before you can even start heeling you should teach a watch command.
After the dog learns the watch from in front of you then I move it to the heel position. Once the dog can focus on me in heel position then you are ready to start one step heeling.

Once they can watch for several seconds in heel, then I will go back to baiting the dog to look at me and take one step forward and treat. You do one step for a while sill the dog understands to move with you. I always take a step with my left foot first and is a signal the dog needs to follow. So many people try to take off walking and many times the dog drops it's head the first step and I want to make sure my dog NEVER does that. That is a really bad habit and why I do one step heeling till my dog really understands. One step, treat! then set up again, one step treat! I only treat if the dog was looking with me as we went forward. One reason why I will hold the treat at my eyes for the first week when I take a step to lure the dog with me. After that I take the treat away, say watch, take a step and treat. By this time the dog should understand what you want. The it's time to go two steps. This is a long process of several weeks to teach a good solid foundation of attention. Now I say all this because it is for competition heeling. I don't ask my dogs to go on a walk to the park with focus. So I am assuming you are looking into competition at some point. Don't be in a rush one step at a time.

In this video you can see when I treat her I treat from my face not drop my hand down and treat. I was the dog always looking at me when I treat. This is venom she was 12 months in this video.

This is my bean head two year male doing some off leash heeling. I moved from food to toys with him. He's a little wide on the return heeling but that's because he is a bean head! lol

Siren, this is the finished product

Hope this helps

__________________
Custom K9 Performance Dog Training and Kennel

shadyridge

ok great!! thanks Lisa. I was hoping you would see my post lol. I am going to try this for him and take baby steps. I wanted to train him to be my sporting dog. But I am not sure thats going to happen. As he seems to be developing or coming out of his shell to speak of and is now DA.Not sure how I am going to do this, but we shall see. He has learned to somewhat control himself on a pinch collar , but then barks and screams like a fool..ugh.....

kg420

Don't be discouraged you can do it My boy was like that at one point too. Real mouthy when we were out and there were other dogs near by. Just keep up on your OB work. I'm doing dock diving with my boy and even though he's DA he's gotten very good at keeping himself calm and collected around the other dogs

Fantastic post Lisa. I love it it's like the building blocks of OB Varro is so f'in cute. I love how he bounces when he walks. It's like he's got little springs in his feet . Such good good pups

__________________

performanceknls

For DA put a boot up his butt and get after him. He s never allowed to look at another dog. doesn't mean you block his view you correct him any time he tries to look. After the correction get him to look at you and treat him. HE needs to learn other dogs will get him into trouble and to focus on you. There is not excuse for him to be interested in other dogs. How old is he? do you have a club to train with?

__________________
Custom K9 Performance Dog Training and Kennel

shadyridge

He is 2 yrs old. When we got him from the shelter he was still sick an we saw none of this DA. But now that he is better, its like wth. We do have a club here that my brothers gf trains with. I might give them a call, but I thought there like for seasoned dogs an didt want to look like a idiot? Plus I dont want someone to slap an "e" collar on him an go "e" collar happy on him.

kg420

E collars can be a great training tool. It's just like any other tool, you need to know how to use it properly. Some dogs that are super thick headed work better with them. And Dispite what some think they don't hurt the dog, it's just giving them a quick correction, like popping the collar.

__________________

shadyridge

Oh dont get me wrong, I have nothing againt e collars. Just have seen alot ppl abuse them. And ruin dogs.

performanceknls

I would go to the club asap you need help to see if he can even do competition sports. 2 is really old to try and do schutzhund with especially is he's DA. The faster you go to get help the less time you waste. That's what a club is for to help you train no matter what level.

__________________
Custom K9 Performance Dog Training and Kennel