I teach my dogs attention heeling- which means they need to be looking at me in order to move. If they look away we stop and restart. Brit is becoming a great heeling dog- she still doesn't have a ton of power but slowly it is getting better and better. We've got loads of enthusiasm now, and I am very happy with the progress. Pixel is a fantastic little heeling dog- she loves the cookies. And will work for a long time to get one. ;)
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| This is the cookie face. Her tongue actually quivers. lol |
5 comments:
LOVE the cookie face! And I would love to have you do a blog post describing how you teach the attention heeling. My dogs are awesome LLWers, but the attention heeling needs work and is something I would like to make a bit of a project of here soon.
here is a link to a blog post from a few years ago.
http://manymuddypaws.blogspot.ca/search?q=choosing+to+heel
I would also like to hear a bit more about you resetting the exercise if a dog's attention dips.
I'm having trouble bridging the gap between heeling for fun and competition. Plus my dog's head dips for the first few steps of heeling, and when she's unaroused it can be tough to get her head back up. I hear a lot about making focus part of the exercise, but not enough on what to do if/when your dog's attention wanders.
Great attention. Oh I just love those blue of Pixels - she is the prettiest corgi I think
Ci Da- i don't ask my dogs to heel at all on a walk- it is two very different behaviors. On a walk they just have to have loose leashes..
Heeling requires major concentration so we do short (or long) bursts. And it is trained in small steps. I start with stationary attention- build up duration before ever taking that first step.
By the time she is ready for a step she should understand what the position and cue means. If the dog looks away I just restart- no correction or anything- just an oops or try again! And then reset and reward big time when the dog does it correctly. It takes a while to get- and often feels like your not progressing. It feels like Brit has been at the same point for a while but I think we are on the brink of a breakthrough!
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