After struggling for months with heeling, things are starting to come together for me and True...Finally! We still have a lot of work to do but I'm pretty happy with how far we've come.

The one thing we still struggle with is a turn to the left. I can't figure out how to do this other than just stepping on and falling over him enough times to where he gets it.

I can turn around completely to the left, reversing my direction, and True comes around my back right back to the heel position, if that makes sense. He does it perfectly and that would seem to be a harder move to execute.

I have the Tom Rose DVD and his method to teach the left hand turn isn't working and I'm sure that's my failing, not Tom's.

Any suggestions for training a left turn would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Teach your dog 2 things:

First, when you take a step backwards, he has to take a step backwards with you. I don't know the Tom Rose method, but I am going from a ball/motivational standpoint here.

Second, every time you make a turn, left or right, turn your head in that direction 1/2 a second before you make the turn. This is the dogs cue to know where you are planning to walk.

Now, when you go to do your left turn, kinda pivot on your right leg while taking half a step back on your left leg while looking to your left with your head. Taking the dog half a step back will have him turn and kick in his butt to be in heel position again, then start walking left foot first.

This will get the dog to line up into the correct position and cue it with the turning of your head to the left. After enough repetitions you can slowly stop faking him out and turn left normally, using your head turning to communicate to the dog that you are going to make a left turn.

Reward a lot (for every tiny move he makes in the right direction) during the teaching face and slowly stretch it out longer and longer.

I'm sure other people have other suggestions too, this is what works for me.

Is he forging a little bit Sarah? That would make the method on the competition heeling dvd a little tougher. I think the key is the timing of the pop on the leash with your right foot. Your head turns with your left step and you pop the leash backwards with the right step so the dog will try to beat that leash pop. I had to do it very slowly to get the coordination down. Separate of that I heeled to the left with him in large circles and then smaller and smaller until be was backing up to stay in that position.

I haven't taught the step backwards so I'll start there. Clearly I need to slow down and break it down further into very small steps.

Great explanation and well-written...I can visualize the whole process perfectly.

Thank you, Mike!

To add to what Mike said, when teaching the back up at heel position part (which I taught the same way) I used the word "back" to cue with all of the correct marking and rewarding. It dose an extra cue, but I was able to phase it out to just "fuss" after he got the concept and it is handy to have for many other reasons.

Small 90 degree turns at a time for a loooong time. Don't be in a hurry to rush to 180s for a while. Also, at the beginning, a half second pause before and after the pivot, then release for the reward.

The turning the head cue is awesome. It really helpful for the dog to know that you are going turn on him...



Edited by JessicaKromer (06/19/2008 10:50 AM)
Edit reason: Oops, too slow :)

Mike, you have some good ideas. Another one is when you turn left step on your pups toes with your right foot, if it is in the wrong position. This will cause the dog to automatically step back and pay attention when he thinks you are turning left. This is a video of a pup I taught left turns in this way http://youtube.com/watch?v=ilciVSKCO_M Notice the dog taking a step back when I turned left. Norman

 Quote: steve strom

Is he forging a little bit Sarah? That would make the method on the competition heeling dvd a little tougher. I think the key is the timing of the pop on the leash with your right foot. Your head turns with your left step and you pop the leash backwards with the right step so the dog will try to beat that leash pop. I had to do it very slowly to get the coordination down. Separate of that I heeled to the left with him in large circles and then smaller and smaller until be was backing up to stay in that position.

Actually, I threw away the leash awhile ago and have been doing all heeling work off-lead, at the suggestion of a forum member. It's been working well but maybe it's time to put the leash back on?

He does have a tendency to move ahead ever so slightly but he's getting better about that, mostly because my timing for rewarding proper position is getting better.

Coordination of head turn and feet is most definitely an issue for me. I think I'm going through the steps too fast and not breaking it down enough. And I'm being too quick to make a hard left turn, I think. I like the large circle suggestion.

 Quote:

Actually, I threw away the leash awhile ago and have been doing all heeling work off-lead, at the suggestion of a forum member. It's been working well but maybe it's time to put the leash back on?

If the dog is doing well off lead then leave him off lead.

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Another one is when you turn left step on your pups toes

I do that when its an accident, I wouldn't do it intentionally. I don't see a need for it.

How did your pup learn the down in motion? He ducks his head on the down. He also anticipates the down on your 180 degree right turn and lags behind you. His recall could be closer, I would have the food you are using lower down on the recall and move your waist backwards while keeping your legs and body in the same position to get the dog to move in closer to you, then once he gets that, keep stepping backwards and let him push you/drive you backwards being as close to you as possible. Thats if you want a closer recall that is. Some people prefer the dog being back from them a bit for whatever reason. And some dogs just don't like being that close in on the recall. He is also losing focus when you are moving too quickly, I would work more on keeping his focus looking up at you step-by-step, so hypothetically you could walk at a super slow speed and keep his attention. Moving fast like that he's getting too busy in his head and trying to keep up so keeps looking away and needing the lure to get his head back up.

Personally there is too much precision there for a 14 week old pup for my taste. I don't like a pup being that controlled, but at least he does it nicely. Just my thoughts on what I see, not criticizing you in any way. We all have our own style for how we do OB and you may have a different way of fine tuning it later on.

I always enjoy your videos, Norman. Thank you.

He's getting his toes stepped on a lot...LOL...but it's all very haphazard and uncontrolled, if that makes sense. And there's no head turn to warn him of what's coming.

Yeah, I would put the leash back on. If you stick with the Comp. Heeling dvd I think you'll find that you can control his position pretty well with how you hold your head because he's so intent on your face for the reward, but until he gets to that point you still need the leash.