PuppyLog

We have been working on a sort of a heel for a while now. Really it has just been loose-leash walking combined with paying attention to whichever one of us is holding the leash. (see “Look at me and beginning to Heel”) I thought I should start working with a more formal heel and began to do so.

When we got started I found that there wasn’t really any difference between what we were doing and a formal heel with the exception of having her sit whenever I stop. We still need to work on it with a more formal method so that she can do it regardless of any distractions, and also to add the sit. I also found that once we started working on it more formally, it clarified things in my own mind and pointed out some mistakes I made.

First the mistakes: I started working on the informal heel while taking her for walks on-leash. A couple of days ago I discovered that, while working on it formally, she heels beautifully whenever I am holding the leash, but when I drop the leash and ask her to heel she seems slightly confused and very easily distracted. To correct this we will start working on heel off-leash and in the house or back yard. In the future I think I will try to always start teaching the heel without the leash, then work up to doing it on-leash.

The second mistake was to drop the treat on the ground for heeling. I thought that this would work well as long as I dropped the treat a bit in front of her so she would naturally continue to heel as she went to get it. There turned out to be two problems with this. First, it is difficult to drop something right where you want it if it bounces and rolls irregularly. Second, and more importantly, she learned that she can stop heeling and search the ground for a treat. She will continue to try to find more treats even after she found what I dropped. S_ taught her to catch the treat and that works much better.

To teach the heel, we started with teaching her to look up at our face. Once she could do that, we simply asked her to do it while going for a walk. She would walk beside me trying to look at my face and I’d giver her a click/treat (c/t). We would require her to look up at us for longer and longer periods before getting a c/t.

In addition, when she gets excited and tries to pull ahead, I stop and back up a few steps, away from the direction she wanted to go. At first, when she stopped pulling and looked back at me, I’d give her a c/t and walk on. Of course this started out being walk on for one step, at which point we would repeat the entire process. After a while I started walking backwards until she walked all the way back to me, then c/t and walk on. Now, when she pulls, I have eliminated the c/t and the only rewards she gets are a “good girl” and continuing to walk on. Often, I still have to repeat the process a couple of times before she will settle down and walk beside me.

We are lucky to have another dog which makes this method easier. At first we had to walk them separately because she would get so excited about Ipo that we could do nothing with her. Now that she is used to living with us and we can walk them both together, it’s great to have Ipo along. Since he walks well, whenever I stop because Lila is pulling, S_ can continue walking ahead with Ipo. This provides a lure, a direction she always wants to go that is the same direction that I want to go. There is no arbitrariness about me being dominant or unpredictable or any such thing. It’s just, “We can’t go where we both want to go until you walk next to me and pay attention.”

That has all been the more or less informal method. It took a little while to come to doing it exactly that way but it’s generally what we were doing all along and has been working well. In the more formal lessons we are building upon what came before. We are not really changing anything other than to add the sit when we stop. Here is how we are proceeding.

We continue to walk as above on our morning walks to the park. The only changes are that I have now, for the most part, eliminated the use of the clicker on walks and just spit a treat out my mouth every now and then when she has been heeling the way I want for a period of time. By now she knows what the treat is for. In addition, if she doen’t catch the treat, she doesn’t get it, we just continue to walk and give her another one right away. I have also stopped looking at her when giving a treat. The idea here is that she doesn’t get a warning, she just has to watch me carefully the whole time.

The morning walks consist of about 20 minutes of walking on heel to the park, 20 minutes to an hour of playing in the park (we throw her toy, play tug, call her back and forth between us, and she gets to play with another dog if we are lucky) and 20 minutes of walking back home on heel. Other walks happen as schedule allows. It’s best if we can walk her late in the day, though any and all other walks help to keep her sweet and happy.

I use her entire lunch as a treats for formal heeling practice. I hang my clicker from a cord around my neck under my t-shirt. Her food bowl is set down out of her reach with a spoon in it so I can easily get a spoonful to give her.

I put her on leash and we walk together in the classic figure-8 pattern. This is a standard way to teach heeling on inside and outside turns. On outside turns she has to speed up to cover a greater distance than I am walking. She also has to learn not to cut across behind me and end up heeling on my opposite side. On smaller inside turns she may have to almost pivot in place in order to stay at my side.  When she is doing this well while paying close attention to me I give her a click and go over to her food bowl, put a spoonful of food on a plastic lid and give it to her.

From there we move on to walking around things, walking past people, dogs and other distractions. We haven’t got a good heel walking past other dogs yet but it’s getting better. Part of the problem is finding another dog owner willing to put this kind of time in. Most other dogs we come across on the street either walk by without being allowed to interact at all, or walk right up to us, at which point it is to difficult to get Lila to ignore them and socially awkward to ask them to stick around while we ignore them for a bit.

Tomorrow we will start from the beginning again and try heeling around the house off-leash. Assuming that goes well, we will progress to heeling off-leash in the yard, then in the park. She already does well sticking close when off-leash (as long as we are walking) but when I tried the figure-8s without holding the leash she just sat down and looked confused.