Hi
I have a little bit of trouble teaching my gsd pup (8mths) to heel. She has been in obedience classes since 13 wks and she does everything perfectly BUT heeling. She looses attention too easily and I don't know how to keep her attention with me without constatnly giving her treats!! Is a clicker useful for teaching heeling? She also has the tendency to surge or sniff the ground. It is strange since anything else we do I have her attention 100% whether I give her treats or not - she just loves to work!! I think she doens't understand 'heel'. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
thanks
nikita007au

Good god ,don't forget the fact she is still a baby,and if you need to use treats then use them. If you are only having a problem with heelwork then i don't think she is doing so bad.I take it that her stay's and recall etc are ok. One little bit of advice ,don't overtrain her at this age and i speak from experience otherwise she may get to the point of saying up your's and go of the idea of training alltogether.Been through that situation with one of my shepherd males and will never make that mistake again. Now when i train a youngster it's 10 mins training and 30 mins play.

Hi
Thanks for the reply. It is just we are at our shepherd club doing classes and all the other sheps her age do fine. We are coming up for our second graduation - and the trainers say how your dogs heel now is what they will heel like always if you don't correct them. I just want her to be well trained! Thanks for the advice though - I might back off her training for a bit!

Thanks
nikita007au

Hi Nikita,

When I taught one of my GSDs to heel I used a kong. She was absolutely mad for them. I held the kong at waist level, under my belly button and her eyes rarely diverted from the kong as we were doing heel work. When we broke she got to play with the kong - I would throw it and she would hurtle after it.

Agree training periods need to be kept short.

Stacey

Hi Nikita,
Doglistener has detailed a fun and very effective method of getting your dog to heel properly in a matter of minutes, and best of all it works :)
I've used it on a 2 year old dog I was told was untrainable and had great success :)

If you do a search on here for Doglistener there's a detailed account of how its done.

Regards
Dill