Hi, I am working on competition heeling right now. My dog & I are at the time, where she knows the fuss position, knows how the finish and I'm getting excellent eye contact with her in the fuss position for 30-45 seconds (at least). It's taken us about 4 weeks to get to this point. We have started some straight heeling now. Short sessions, 2 steps, 5, 3, 7, 10, 4, etc. She is doing good at this point but sometimes she looks to see where she is walking. Am I going too fast? Also, when should I start teaching the sit when I stop?

Just curious as to when other members have decided to move forward and how long has it taken each person to get a nice heel for 40-50 steps or so. I know each dog/handler team is way different, but just wanted to get stories. This is the 1st time I teach a fuss and I don't want to screw it up (too much ) Thanks!

My bitch is 18 months old now, she has been doing a heel I have been satisfied with for about 3 months and I started her heeling at around 7 months old or so.... so if my math is right, it took me 8 months to get a heel I was happy with (off leash without the ball in sight). I still haven't worked her properly on a finish or an automatic sit because I wanted the focus to be perfect first, but depending on the dog you can start this earlier. I chose not to because I want to keep our training as happy and up beat as possible, her natural positioning is very annoying, so rather than getting irritated at poor positioning AND worrying about her heel, I work on focus first and will fix the positioning later. I am currently on semi training hiatus or I would have worked on that already. Ofcourse, her heel has been nice for a long time, took maybe 3 months for it to look good to other people on-lead, but as a handler you often see the small mistakes that other people miss

If she is a dog who goes too fast and tries to get ahead of you then walk into her making BIG left circles on the training field. If she is a dog that needs to pick up the pace then make BIG right circles. Never go straight, well, not till you get the heel perfect. If she is looking away to watch where she's going then beat her up with one of those foam baseball bats... No, kidding ofcourse! Try to figure out at which point she looks away. Is it after too many steps? Is there a distraction on the field at that point? Does the terrain change? Is there an obstacle in the way? Did you walk by a tree or an A frame or something? Once you figure out why she looks away you can try to time yourself to reward her before she looks away.

I did the sit at the same time as fuss. He did it once, so I built on it, starting from about 12 weeks. His eye contact isn't 100%, (he's 6mos old now) but I don't do any competition sports at all, so I couldn't care less. BUT- I should think you'd be ok to introduce the sit now, since she seems to be doing well. You can continue to build up the eye contact as you go along. I'm assuming she already knows the sit command, so it's not like throwing something entirely new at her. Mine would sit 100% of the time at about 16weeks, and heels perfectly (doesn't get ahead of me, stops when I stop). You'll know you've moved too fast if she's totally confused. Relax!

Like Mike, I taught mine at 7 months of age even a bit later.I teach the attention however earlier.From a sit position, I teach the attention, look at me and he got a reward as soon as he looks at me.The reward HAS to come fast and prompt when you are getting what you want. then you move on to the heel position and heel off and the attention should be there, make sure you reward as soon as your dog looks at you.Until you proof your heel with attention YOU have to REWARD each time your dog looks at you! That is what most people miss during that exercise and don't get the result they want.Your dog ALex looks around because you are not rewarding enough when she DOES look at you.Makes sense?
So when you work on your heeling next , do this.Put your dog at the start position.Your dog at a sit and you at her side, heel off and as you make your first step and she looks at you drop the tug(or whatever toy U use)Keep doing that and go further and further until she always thinks you are going to drop the toy at any time. What keeps her attention is the anticipation that at any moment her toy is dropping down to her...You can go at a fast pace too but do not forget to reward at the right time and often!
Good luck Alex, you'll get it done ,be patient, and timing is everything!

I also started late because I saw what I needed when she was a young pup. She would walk around backwards staring at my face after spitting hotdogs at her 3 or 4 times. The intense focus was always there, I didn't need to work on it so I never put much emphasis on it because I knew it was there. Now I can walk her into a wall and she'll still look at me waiting for her ball With a pup that doesn't focus that intently I would have spent more time trying to bring it out, but if its there its there, it won't disappear unless you screw something up

I think also when you have a dog that has the drives , the heeling with attention can be so easy.I think too a handler that knows when to reward and knows what it takes to get that attention it's much easier.This is my 7th shepherd to train from puppy age so I've had plenty of practise on the heeling with attention but I have found that when a dog has the drives, it's a breeze..

Mike: I hope you don't show off that walking into wall trick too often!!!!!!!!

The second my dog looks away I pull out the tug reward and show them what they missed. If your loosing the eye contact to often, your probably going to fast.

Thanks for the tips guys. I went back a few steps to keeping eye contact @ 100% and rewarding before she loses interest. In the last day or so, I haven't lost her attention before I reward, so when that happens, I'll try do what Bob says.

This is something I'm definately interested in learning. I have ordered the basic obedience and dominant dog dvd's and I'm thinking that Competition heeling will be my next. Now my dog is 18 months old so I'm hoping I haven't waited too long. She's a husky/border collie so I'm not sure if this is going to be a difficult thing to teach her. She does like to be in front on leash, which most of the time I don't mind as long as she doesn't put any tension on the leash. When she does I stop dead and wait till she comes back then we move forward. She still gets distracted away from me easily and doesn't always want to take treats from me especially outside where there's lots going on. Any suggestions on how to start properly would be greatly appreciated