01 Zář Start your heeling properly or suffer the consequences
This week we will interrupt the dog trainer series for a bit and talk about something else. A little pet peeve of mine that I see time and time again with new clients.
Heeling — one of the most, if not the most important exercises in any obedience routine. I would say around 80-90 % of any given obedience routine consists of heeling. That’s why we should spend a sizable portion of our training working on and perfecting our heeling. Heeling is the foundational obedience exercise. When someone wants to see how your obedience looks, they will want to see your heeling primarily. So make sure it’s good.
Today I want to talk about a very common, often overlooked aspect of heeling which can bite you in the ass pretty severely down the road. It’s the importance of the start and the first few steps of your heeling.
Hidden danger of not paying attention
What I see very often is handlers not really focusing on the first few steps of their heeling. They focus on heading straight to their destination (if there is any) and not paying that much attention to their dog. This can be a big mistake because your heeling is only as good as your first few steps. Screw them up and you won’t get a good heel when it matters most, at the actual trial.
You see the danger here is that, while training, it doesn’t look half as bad as it will look when you are at the trial. Let me explain what this mistake usually looks like. The dog is sitting in the basic position looking up at his handler, as he should. Everything is fine, but when the heel command comes and the handler starts walking, the dog doesn’t maintain the position of the head. Instead, he looks ahead or at the ground in front of him for the first step/few steps before resuming to look up.
This seems like a minor mistake, but it isn’t. Very often the dog focuses upwards again only because of a prompt or praise from the handler. You can’t do this at the trial, and even when your dog corrects himself, will he do it again at the trial when he is heeling for the fifth time without any reward? Or will he keep his head down looking forward and thus ruining your performance?
If your dog starts heeling wrongly there is a big chance he will keep doing it wrong and won’t correct himself. Especially when not rewarded or in a stressful situation.
No reward and stress. Does that sound like a trial? That definitely sounds like a trial.
Not maintaining upward focus is the most common mistake associated with the start of the heeling, but there can be others of course – jumping, getting too close, and hindering the handler, or the opposite – getting too far away, pushing forward, etc. These mistakes often seemingly correct themselves during the training but will usually exaggerate themselves at a trial.
Be mindful from the very beginning
So, what’s the takeaway here? Well first of all, when heeling, I highly recommend focusing on your start and your first few steps. Don’t slack off, and don’t tell yourself it’s not important. Don’t be lulled into thinking it’s fine that your dog has no problem with it. Don’t underestimate it. Watch your dog, correct any mistakes and think about how you can make it better. Be mindful!
I don’t want to leave you with this rather general advice, so here are two concrete methods to ensure you give your dog the best conditions possible for a smooth transition from sitting to heeling:
- Rewards
Be sure to reward your dog for one, two, three, four steps of heeling. Many of the problems arise from the handlers not rewarding the first few steps of their dog’s heeling. They don’t think the dog has “done enough” to earn a reward and make them heel for longer (at least ten steps or more) before rewarding them.
This leads to the dog quickly discovering that the first few steps don’t matter to him, because regardless of him doing it right or wrong, he never gets his reward. And trust me, dogs are extremely witty at figuring these things out. As soon as he discovers this, his performance at this particular segment of the heeling will go down.
But if you make sure to reward him for the first steps at least once in a while, you will see a marked improvement. It will suddenly make sense to him to really do his best even at the very beginning.
- Be fair to your dog
This is a big one. I dare say the majority of handlers don’t know this and the majority of dogs have problems when this is not done properly. Without exaggerating, I estimate this is the cause of 80% of the aforementioned problems. I am talking about rushing it and starting to walk too early after, or even simultaneously with the command “heel”.
Many handlers say the command “heel” right at the moment as they start moving. This is wrong.
Imagine being the dog, sitting anxiously in the basic position and nervously awaiting a heel command that comes far too late to be ready for. You know you won’t be able to go as fast and you want to be a good dog and heel perfectly, but you just aren’t able to do this in the beginning, there is not enough time.
So what do you do? You get nervous in the basic position, you jump the first few steps of heeling to catch up with your handler. You put your head down for the first few steps to make it easier for you to cope with all the stress it is putting on you.
Does this seem comfortable or even fair to you? Because it’s definitely not. You as the handler are standing, you can start walking immediately. The dog has to get up before he can walk and he has to wait for you to initiate the movement. That’s a severe disadvantage. Don’t do this to your dog, there are few dogs that can cope with this without developing problems with the starting phase of heeling.
Put yourself in your dog’s paws
Try doing a little exercise to imagine what your dog is going through. Stand up and look straight up at the sky or the ceiling so you don’t see the floor or ground below you. Now, let someone push you from behind without warning, so that you’re forced to make a step forward.
Does this feel comfortable? Don’t you feel like you would want to look down to check where you are going? Do you feel anxious and nervous before the push comes?
Now try this again but let the other person tell you: “Ok, I am going to push you, three, two, one, here we go.”
Isn’t this much better? It’s still not very comfortable to be walking while looking up but at least you know when it comes, and it’s much easier to maintain upwards focus.
Just give your dog some time
This is the solution really. Just let your dog know when the first step is coming. Give your dog some time after you say “heel”. One Mississippi, one second, one breath, however you want to think about it. Just give him some time before you start moving. You will see that this one little change will bring big results, not to mention it will be much fairer to your dog.
The sequence is very easy, just three steps:
- Say the “heel” command while standing absolutely still with your dog in the basic position sitting beside you.
- Wait for one second/one Mississippi/one breath and don’t move.
- Start heeling with a smooth (perhaps a tad slower) first step, making it easier for your dog to get going.
Don’t think about the “heel” command as meaning “let’s go”. The heel command should mean “get ready, buddy, we’ll be moving shortly”.
Try it, your dog will be grateful for it. Tell him uncle John says hello and he is very welcome.
So there you have it. Don’t underestimate the starting phase of your heelíng. Pay attention and make it as pleasant for your dog as possible. Be sure to reward your dog now and again and be fair to him. Give him time to get ready to perform at his best, we know he wants to from the bottom of his heart. Your dog is amazing so let him show that to you and everyone else.
As always this is no rocket science, just common sense. So remember – always be mindful and watch your dog carefully.