All the things I wish I knew before I got my first ever puppy!
I hate doing heel work. It’s boring, repetitive and slow, but annoyingly, it does have good results if you stick to it. The dog training centre that I take Cooper to is quite ‘old school’ and a lot of people training there have had success with their dogs at Crufts before or they join a display team.
To put it out there now, I have NO intention of taking Cooper to Crufts, I would likely end up going viral online because he’s decided to take a dump mid course or something! But nevertheless, I do want him to have a decent level of training, and as he’s already almost half my weight at under 6 months, I don’t want to be in the situation where he’s pulling me along the road on walks.
I’ve been going to puppy class for the past 2 months and at least 50% of every puppy class is heel work. To put it simply, walking with your dog at your heel. All the steps to do it seem so simple, and when the instructors explain it to you you think ‘pfft, is that it?’ Then you try it…
All of the following training is rewards based, so essentially you are rewarding good behaviour instead of punishing bad behaviour. At times you feel like you are just feeding your dog non stop and it’s just bribery, but it does pay off in the end. Your dog isn’t purposely trying to annoy you, you need to show your dog in a way they understand, what is right and what is wrong.
STEP 1 - TREATS
Make sure you have HIGH VALUE treats. You need something that your dog is going to love and is going to work hard to get. There’s no use using their kibble in this instance, one because of size, and two, because although your dog will probably take it as a treat, it probably won’t be enough to keep them interested for this exercise. Ideally you want a treat thats big enough that you can hold it at one end and your dog can nibble on it at the other end without getting your fingers!
STEP 2 - CHOOSE A SIDE
Choose a side that you want your dog to walk on. The official competition way is to have your dog to the left of you, but there’s nothing technical behind that, so if you want your dog on the right it makes no difference. The only thing is, once you’ve picked a side, stick to it!
STEP 3 - GET YOUR DOG IN A SIT POSITION
Get your dog into a sit position on whatever side you have chosen for them to walk on. They should be next to you, facing in the direction that you’ll be walking in. It’s okay to lure them into the position with treats. When you say sit though, you say it ONCE. If they don’t sit, put one hand through their collar and then with your other hand, gently push down on their bum, like a see saw, they should sit down. If you start saying ‘sit, sit, SIT,’ although your dog may sit on the 3rd attempt, it could eventually train them to think that ‘sitsitsit’ is the command for them to sit, instead of just ‘sit.’
STEP 4 - HOLD YOUR LEAD IN THE OPPOSITE HAND
So if your dog is on the left hand side, hold the lead in your right hand and vice versa, if your dog is on the right, hold your lead in your left hand. This is a consideration that you may want to take into account when you choose what side to walk your dog on.
STEP 5 - HOLD THE TREAT IN YOUR FREE HAND
Having the lead in the opposite hand leaves the hand closest to your dog free to hold your treat of choice. You want to hold the treat by your leg at your dog’s nose height for them to follow. If you have a small breed dog, to make it easier you could try using a wooden spoon with some kind of treat smothered on it, for example, peamutt butter. You need the treat to be at their level- otherwise it will just encourage them to jump up for it.
STEP 6 - WALK
Now comes the slightly more tricky bit. The basic idea is you walk at your normal pace forward and ideally you want your dog to be following the treat in your hand. It’s surprisingly difficult at first mastering walking while holding the treat in the right place. You want your dog to be able to nibble on or at least lick the treat in your hand so that they have the incentive to follow it. If you move your hand too far out or in front of you, that’s inevitably where your dog is going to end up, so you need to be on your A game as well!
Practise going up and down over a short distance, for example, walk 5-10 metres forward, then turn around and come back to where you started. When you do turn around, keep your dog on the outside of the turn. When your dog is where they are meant to be, introduce a verbal command, the generic ones are ‘heel’ or ‘close’ but it can be whatever you want it to be as long as you stick with it!
STEP 7 - REWARD
When you get back to where you started, before you make the dog sit, reward them with the treat that they have been following. If you make the dog sit before you give them the treat, they will think that they got the treat for sitting, not for walking.
STEP 8 - SIT
Just like at the start, get your dog to sit. Then reward them again. If your dog is showing good behaviour, never be afraid to give them a treat. Even if you didn’t ask them to do it, reinforcing it as a good thing will make them learn quicker what behaviours are worth doing.
DEVELOPING THINGS FURTHER
Walk & Sit
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Start asking your dog to sit mid walk. Remember that it will take them a while to process the command, so give the verbal cue a few metres before you want them to stop. Then, as before, reward the sit, and then carry on.
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Changing Direction
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Make it harder for your dog and start changing direction frequently so that they have to follow you and don’t just rely on walking in a straight line. If they struggle, go back a few steps and work them up to it again.
WHAT IF...
My dog refuses to get up?
Cooper often does this to me in class, he goes down like a sack of potatoes, all four paws in the air and will not budge- if I try and pull him up he collapses back down like he’s lost the use of his legs. When I spoke to the head trainer about it, he basically said he’s testing to see who’s in charge, and if you let him get away with it, you’re handing him the control. Instead he said it’s all about making it worth his while to do it. Bribery basically. If you try and manually lift your dog up and he/she flops back down again, use your treat to lure them back up and into the sit position (hence why high value treats are needed), but ONLY give them the treat when they are in the position you want them to be in.
My dog is running all over the place?
Lead length- if your dog is getting too far away from you, the simple answer is that their lead is too long. I brought Cooper a short lead for heel work. It’s technically a lead designed for reactive dogs that need to be kept close, but it’s an ideal length to aid you with training. Either that or loop your current lead around your hand a couple of times to shorten it.
My dog isn’t responding to the treat?
Change the treat. Find something that your dog REALLY loves, for Cooper I use Chicken, he goes mad for it. If you’re not keen on using treats, then using a toy or your voice as a reward is also an option- although a much harder one!
