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Topic Dog Boards / General / walk at heal?
- By dollface Date 01.02.12 11:22 UTC
Think I need some help with our girl.

She does great for sit, down, stay and when in these if I call her she comes. I can put her in a stay
and  walk around in the house and come back- all is good there. She does look at me when
I say watch me. Prob is when I try to get her to walk at heal No attention span what so ever. I say watch me,
have tried with treats but she is just way to jumpy and biting at my hand, tried toys, nope same. Mostly her head is down and sniffing
away- can't get her to put her head up and walk lol Have tried turning around going the other way once she moves ahead
of me- and being all excited to keep her following me and eye's on me grrr!! Have even tried not moving, also stopping.
Have tried just doing about turn to see if she focus with out saying anything, but don't like that to much cause I think
its just a sudden jerk on her neck and she don't need that. Learning should be fun.
In the house she is pretty good at staying beside me, but once outside that nose goes down and I lost her :eek: I am
only going up and down my street so basically just in front of my house.

I no she is just 4 months tomorrow but most of the dogs are pretty good in puppy class lol But she def
has excelled at the sit, down and stay part where they are all working on that- I no all dogs learn at
different rates. just wondering if you have any pointers on helping to walk at heal.

Thank you :-)
- By LurcherOwner [gb] Date 01.02.12 11:49 UTC
I hope some1 comments soon, as this is also the one thing I have trouble with, but even in the house I cant do it :(
- By JeanSW Date 01.02.12 12:33 UTC
When teaching Collies to walk at HEEL, I have always had a small portion of something tasty and smelly in the palm of my hand. 

Holding your hand with a snuffling muzzle in it, it is up to you to get the exact placing of the food and hand. Everything else falls into place.  :-)  But do remember that 4 months is still very much a puppy.
- By marisa [gb] Date 01.02.12 14:09 UTC
She is very young to be doing heelwork perfectly (or trying to) outside - the world is a very exciting place at this age. Two bits of advice - 1. upgrade your titbits to things she can't resist (eg sausage/cheese/chicken) etc and make sure she is hungry 2. do one step with the sweet literally on the end of her nose, stop and reward straight away. Then build up very slowly, sometimes do a jackpot reward where she gets 4 or 5 sweets for a really good effort. I find that people who come to club have really boring sweets (no offence lol), despite being advised on the phone to bring some nice things from their fridge.
The other thing you can do is stand outside your house, let her do all the sniffing and looking around, get it out of her system. Then, when she gives any acknowledgement that you are there, make a big fuss and reward heavily. (You might need to engineer this if she is particularly nosy eg by making a clicking noise with your tongue, dropping a sweetie on the floor etc). She will learn that being nosey gets her nothing but tuning into you is very rewarding.
- By Stevensonsign [gb] Date 01.02.12 17:05 UTC
Very young pup to expect so perfect heel work , I don't use a lead for this training , just a liver  treat(or something tempting) and do pattern work ,hand over their head , circles with pup following.. round my legs , left turn , right turn etc.
Then the bit in left hand , or favourite toy only used for lead work .Voice tone is important especially in class or on the street to get their attention.
I teach WAIT for recall not STAY. Stay is correctly used for "walk round the house and come back to dog '
Wait is  so useful , wait at door , wait in car , etc . Use five bar gate hand signal(open fingers )  and short wait command.
Stay is closed hand signal and a longer lower voice tone.
- By dollface Date 01.02.12 17:17 UTC
I use stay when I want her to stay, and wait
When opening the door. She is really good
With this.
I don't expect total walk at heal but a way to get
Her more interested in me I guess. I will try
Letting her have the sniff around ect before
I try to get her walking with out pulling.
I have green Tripe treats and liver treats. I also run
n call her excitedly to get her to follow me. Guess
Little short sessions more so in a day. Rather
Then that she is doing great.
Will try some of that Thankyou :-)
- By marisa [gb] Date 01.02.12 17:53 UTC
You could also allow her to sniff as a reward for paying attention - put a command to it (eg 'Ok, go sniff') and then you're not fighting against what she likes to do. The chances are that if your training is motivatory enough (great rewards given frequently and you being excited and pleased with her), she will soon forget about what's around anyway as you are much more rewarding lol. Don't worry how everyone else in club is doing - it's natural to compare but don't get too despondent if their dogs seem to be better at some things than yours. It's swings and roundabouts.
- By dollface Date 01.02.12 18:09 UTC
Lol not to worried how she is doing in class- she is great at everything else, very proud of her. She is now learning to stand and also to stay in a lay as I walk around her.

Just the walking I want to work on so she is not pulling- so looking for idea's to help me and make that part of learning more fun then frustrating- When I do get
frustrated I stop on a happy note and leave it so always left on a postive :-)
- By marisa [gb] Date 01.02.12 20:50 UTC
Ah but walking in the real world is not the same as heelwork. If I had a pully dog, the things I would try would be very different to getting a dog to do competition style heelwork.
Topic Dog Boards / General / walk at heal?

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