Hi everyone, long time no post!

I have a problem with training my GSD on the flip finish. He comes to me, goes around behind me and ends on my left side in a proper sit--but not in the proper place.

He kicks his butt out at a right angle to me, I'm assuming it's so he can look at me better. In other words, if you were to view us from an aerial view, we would look like an L.

How do I get him to stop kicking his butt out? I've tried pushing his butt into position, but that doesn't feel right to me, and it's not working. I've tried stepping forward with him heeling and this works sometimes, but it won't work if I don't step forward. I've also told him to sit before he can flip the butt out but then he's way too far behind me, for some reason, he moves back.

I imagine that this is a common problem. How have people fixed this?

Thanks so much!

Sara

I started totally over. I taught the heel position on the cue "flip." Then gradually having him "flip" or come to heel from various spots until I was asking him to "flip" from a sit front. I also use the flip command if he starts to forge.

I also worked on it next to a barrier so he didn't have the option of turning to face me.

He's not perfectly square every time, so maybe this isn't the best method, but the dog understands what I want and I'm not physically pushing him around.

Whoops - now that I read your post again it sounds like you're doing a regular finish where the dog goes around your back, not a flip finish where your dog stays on your left side?

I'm so sorry, Anne! I reread my post and I screwed up. What I meant to do was explain the way I was doing it (the regular finish) and what I MEANT to write was that I was wondering if training the flip finish would be a way to fix the problem of the wandering butt!

And if so, how do you train for the flip finish, because I'm not having much luck!

I don't think you would want to confuse the two. I have a really hard time when I try to teach a dog both the right and left (flip) finish. Must be some fault in what I do because I have the same problem with every dog I've tried it with. Oops - except one. She was a Leerburg dog - those dogs are just much smarter than average!

Just work next to a barrier for a looong time. Take away the option of the wandering butt and reward highly for the correct position. Then "fade" your barrier - make it gradually less. Like move from working beside a guard rail to working beside a row of weave poles. No reward for wandering butt, high reward for sitting straight. He'll figure it out quickly.

Or just do what Tom Rose does in the Leerburg Competition Heeling DVD.

He uses this technique to teach the dog to keep its butt tucked in (close to the handler, not wandering away) while circling to the left and making left turns during heeling.

He just loops the leash around the dog's waist/loins; the handler holds the leash behind him and when he makes a left turn (or circle) he gives a quick jerk on the leash so the dog's butt is pulled towards him.

After a number of repetitions, the dog over-compensates and swings its butt into the handler's leg at each left turn. So neat

Eventually, when the butt-leash is removed, the over-compensation (swinging the butt TOO close to the handler) settles down and the dog performs beautifully tight turns.

No butt wandering at all.

I would use the same method to teach the tucked in butt for the finish. The problem with using a wall or fence to prevent the outward butt movement is that there's no "active" teaching/compulsion going on and the dog reverts to the old behaviour as soon as you work out in the open again.

I love Tom's philosophy in all the training steps in that heeling DVD. By teaching the exaggerated positions - whether it's teaching the dog to jump out of the handler's path on left turns, tucking its butt in when going left, speeding up with the handler, sudden stopping etc. - the dog very quickly learns what is expected.
It seems to make the training much clearer in his mind.

The trick is really to expect an exaggerated version of the position at first so that it "clicks" in the dog's mind. Works SO MUCH better than nagging and nudging the dog around to perfect its position

Of course once the dog eases into the training, the over-compensation or exaggeration of the positions fades away and you're left with perfect positions each time.

I hope that made a little bit of sense. It's so much easier to just demonstrate this training on a dog than it is to explain it in writing

Thanks! VERY helpful guys.

With the last dog I was training this, I couldn't do anything touching the dog because of very strong opposition reflex. I gave the flip command while turning slightly and faded out the verbal cue. So when I turn, the dog flips into the heel position. I'd say like Tom Rose's dog "Kelly" on the DVD, but this dog is a clumsy lab mix whose movements simply cannot be compared to a graceful mal's.

Just a thought for those who don't like to, or are not able to jerk a dog around.