Okay, I just got my new vest from Leerburg today & I have to tell all you guys this is definitely a VERY GOOD thing! It is so light weight you can wear it in the hottest weather. It is really well constructed & good looking too. It has great big pockets - enough to carry everything you could possibly want. The ball drop pocket can be put in different places on the vest. This vest is the cats miaow!!!! I HIGHLY recommend it.

Now I want one.

If only there was a treat dispenser that worked along the same lines, something you could wear that dispensed one treat at a time. That would save my fingers (actually my thumb) while teaching the heel.

Your mouth! Also I don't know if you ahve tried this or not, but I find if I expose only a tiny bit of the treat with my hand in a fist, my dog can't get my fingers or thumb. He is less apt to snap at it I think.

I'm trying to visualize what you mean. Maybe the treats I give are so small that there's not enough treat to "hide" and still let a little bit show. What I've been doing is holding the tiny treat in a way that he inadvertently knocks my thumb joint with his teeth. I now have a bump on my thumb joint that hurts like heck, especially when he keeps hitting it. Other than being in that high a drive, he takes treats gently.

I guess if I used hot dog instead, I could spit them out but I'd miss a lot and he'd be all over the place trying to find them in the lawn. I'm doing the constant treat as long as he's in position, so the treats have to come fast, faster than I can spit . Well, maybe I could work on my aim and speed.

How about just dropping the treat with my fingers above his head? I think I'll try that, hopefully he won't be jumping up and getting out of position to catch them. Even if he does jump, he won't get the treat.

It's just getting painful to teach the heel right now.

This is hard to describe! Treats are in your right hand? Make a fist, over your thumb (tuck your thumb in). Have the treat just poking out over the thumb, under the knuckle - in that little pocket.

Just a thought Sandy --

I have used a whole hotdog sliced length-wise or a whole piece of string cheese in training the heel. I hold it (open palm with my thumb) so that my dog can just get a nibble at a time for a reward and I don't have to interrupt her focus to fumble for another piece of food.

I have worked with my dog so I can spit the reward (and she can catch it :grin for fronts but can't get the right placement/timing to do it while heeling.

Sandy, try teaching him to look at your face separate of the healing so that he knows the food comes from your mouth. Every time he looks you in the eye "YES" and spit a piece to him. When you start to do it in heel you actually release him and then reward him so its ok for him to be out of place. When you first start the healing you are walking very slow and leaning towards him to keep the eye contact.You reward him intermittently,3steps,5steps,10steps,2steps. Andy started off a little out front, not completely in heel position but as I started standing straight up and looking forward he came right into the correct position. I had been shown something like this at classes but the Tom Rose Competition Heeling dvd really teaches this better then anyone had ever shown me.

This is all very helpful. Like Sandy, I've started trying to teach heeling and I'm having problems with treat management, spitting coordination...you name it. The only thing I've so far managed to do right is he has known the "watch me" command since he was very young and does it pretty well. As for the rest of it, heeling seems to be more prone to handler errors than anything else I've taught to date. I certainly feel like a klutz doing it

Another way to get more comfortable with spitting the treats is to practice at home, nothing else to worry about, while you and the dog are calm & relaxed. You can even do it while you are sitting down with the dog in front of you. When he looks in your eyes, spit. This is a good way to get started, you become much more comfortable with the technique this way. Then go with the dog in proper heel position, but not until you have confidence in your coordination. Last thing, I SWEAR once you get the hang of it, you'll love it!

I was looking for this thread. I had lost it for a while after seeing that you all had given answers and wanted to thank you.

So I have started the spitting , practicing first. Can't say I'm a professional spitter yet but am going for the title. I have to put one piece of hot dog at a time in my mouth, cause it makes me gag if there's too many pieces in there.

It also unfortunately reminds me of the time I got food poisoning as a kid and in my delirious state at the hospital, I started craving and asking for raw hot dogs and corn on the cob

I started the spitting reward with the look at me command, which he knows and if I miss spitting in the right place (his face so he can catch it), it's no big deal.

Steve, I was doing the heel as you described it, except for the spitting part, rewarding with treats out of my poor hand.

I started with a heel training method Sefi Sahar told me about, which his grandfather used to do. Then I got the book "Schutzhund Obedience, Training in Drive" and was pleased to see that the method of training the heel was very much like Sefi described.

Very exciting, all of it . Thanks so much everyone!