I don't know where exactly I should post this, as this is a combo basic obedience/e-collar question, but as we are beginning our e-collar training phase I thought here would be a good start.

Our 15 month old Shepherd mix, Jake seems to have trouble with Heel.

He has been through obedience classes with much improvements in many areas and when it comes to the heel we have tried various training methods: Teaching him the position with lots of treats and praise when he is doing well, correcting him on a choke chain, (now moving into e-collar for corrections), and doing the whole standing still like a tree thing everytime he pulls, only to move forward once the leash is loose again. Nothing seems to be totally sinking in with him. When it comes to heel and Jake, he just seems to want to do anything but mind us.

I do believe that Jake understands the command Heel, except he seems to see it only as a temporary position, not something he has to maintain. As soon as he is in heel and/or not pulling and we say good boy, he pulls forward, walking out in front again.

As we are just starting out with the e-collar training (We do have Ed's DVD) We want to be sure we are teaching him in the correct way, and not undoing all the hard work we have put in so far. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My Husband and I are wondering if we need to start the whole process of Heel over again. If so, what is the best/most effective approach using the e-collar.

Are you trying to teach him formal competition heeling or do you just want him to walk nicely alongside you without pulling your arm off on walks?

If it's simply walking like a gentleman that you want from him, it's easy. Get a prong collar and fit him properly with it.

That will reduce the pulling right away. If he still continues to pull with the prong on, say "NO" once, and if he doesn't back off, give him a pop.
Make sure your correction is hard enough that he backs off on the pressure. If you do this prong correction right, it shouldn't be so hard that he drops to the ground and acts traumatized. Ideally, he should give a little yelp and immediately return to your side.
If he pulls again after a few seconds, repeat.

The pulling is a respect issue so you don't need a heel command for that. He's pulling because he knows he can get away with it (= your current corrections are ineffective)

If it's competition-level heeling you want, well that's a whole other issue. Ed has an excellent DVD to teach that (Competition Heeling with Tom Rose). He's also working on a Bernahrd Flinks heeling DVD, which I'm hoping will be out soon!

Keep in mind though, if you do teach Jake the formal "heel" with eye contact and perfect position, this is not the command to use on walks.
Formal heeling is a difficult exercise that requires intense focus of the dog so it shouldn't be used excessively to the point of going beyond his attention span

Good luck with Jake.

As Yuko said, I don't know if you're trying to teach formal competition heeling or not. Sounds like you're simply trying to teach him to walk right beside you during walks. Not sure if you have Ed's Basic Obedience DVD, but in the DVD, he mentioned that it does not matter if the dog walks in front of you or not, as long as it doesn't pull on the leash.

I have his Dominant/Aggressive Dogs DVD, and in that DVD, he also mentions the same thing. Dogs who are really dominant should ALWAYS walk behind you, and he teaches this on that particular DVD (Dominant/Aggressive dogs).

The dog is corrected with a prong collar each time it begins to walk passed you. You say, "No", then you give a correction 1 1/2 seconds later. I suppose that you can accomplish the same with an e-collar, with low-level stimulation. I've worked my dog through Ed's e-collar DVD, and I only recall him talking about him expecting the dog not to pull on the leash, but not about expecting the dog to walk beside/behind you. This is probably because it's assumed that you've already watched his Basic Obedience DVD.

This doesn't address the formal heel, but walking on a loose leash. I went to a professional trainer and this is what she had me do:

Put him on the leash (I use a prong collar) and start walking. As soon as he gets out in front, turn 90 degrees to the right, give him the leash pop from hell and say heel! Praise him when he comes back to you. In short order, very, very short order, he started paying attention to me and staying by my side.

When the trainer would demonstrate, she'd get him to yelp with her leash pops. He doesn't with me, I guess I don't pop him hard enough. But whenever he starts to forget himself and go out front too far, I change directions and pop him. He's the only dog in my neighborhood that doesn't pull on his leash during our walks.

Currently I'm having great success controlling his dog aggressiveness using the remote collar. Good luck to you.

That's very old school compulsion training. It works, but I don't like it. There's better ways to train a heel, even if it's not a focused heel, that don't require making the dog afraid to not walk by your side.

Hey Mike,
Could you elaborate on the heel method that you use?
I am having a heck of a time getting my Mal to do it with a flat collar (she is fine in a prong), I do not want to have to rely on the prong though. Nor do I want to go electric (although we use the e-collar for "don't kill anymore cats" and "livestock and wild game is not for chasing no matter how close you are when you scare it up" training)

I "think" we have a good bond/pack order but she just likes to rush out ahead of me and with her conditioning training she pulls harder than my Bloodhound at times. I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong.

I have used food, praise and her toy....the thing I have not done yet is order a video from ED. I am STUCK!!!

She is 15 months and minds her other commands very well (sitz, platz, nein, fooey, bleib, enough, heir and a few others, but the foos (spelling?) is a tough one for her.

Thanks (I hope I am not hi-jacking, it seems to be in the same order as this thread is going I hope.)

thanks for everyones advice.

We are indeed trying to get him to just walk without pulling, not to competition heel. I wasn't sure how important is was to get him to walk by my side. H, as he is improving a lot at not pulling, but he is out in front of me most of the time. My problem is I don't know where to draw the line on when to correct him. Before we started on the e-collar, we were correcting him on a choke chain. (the prong collar was not recommended for Jake on advice from our trainer).

We have worked with a trainer in obiedience classes, however, perhaps it would be helpful to view Ed's obiedience DVD to refresh things. Any advice on different approched appreciated.

Just Curious: What was the reason that the prong was discouraged?

She considered Jake to be a dominant dog (a judgement we don't totally agree with as we find him submissive in many ways). She basically just said to us that a prong collar on a dominant dog would not be a good idea as he could possibly come up the leash at us when he is corrected. That is what I understood from her.

I am just getting to grips with this site, so I am sorry that have come in so late on this query re Jake.
As you are just wanbting him to walk relaxed by your side, what I would do is to turn sharply in any direction: right, about turn or left so you walk into Jake as soon as he gets ahead of you.
When you are going to do this, don't say a word: no heel, no correction, no nothing.
He will soon learn that to stay just behind your knee or with his head level with it is the place to be!