Hi everyone, this is my first time posting to this forum, so bear with me ;-)
I have a 2 year old male GSD who is toy crazy. I would like to reteach his heeling position. When we started obed training, there were a lot of leash pops on a check chain. It resulted in him earning his CKC CD with him just plodding along with his attention outside the ring. I am looking for more information on retraining the heeling happily. I do plan on buying some of the Leerburg video's, but I am not in a position to do so quite yet, so does anyone have any suggestions, including using a clicker with the tug toy or ball instead of a treat?
Thanks,
Michelle Crawford <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

i am still new to this "training in drive" stuff but i will give a go.

ok try this do not use the heel command until you have the behavier you want and you may want to change the command to something else like german fuss, just to get the association correct with the dog. than put the dog into drive and start playing with her. when she gets on the left side start walking forward. she should fall into the correct heel position.

take a step immidiate reward.

than keep it up like that when you can get maybe 3 or 4 steps start saying the word you want.

the experts will probly pick apart what i said but it worked for my dog.

Since I made all of the above mistakes, I think I'm qualified to put in my 2 cents <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I did the jerk/pop heeling with my high drive dog. Later on I wanted to go back and re-teach it attention heeling. I would definately change the command to begin with. I also would not do any type of training toward this type of heeling until you either get a video or someone in person, to teach you how to do it right. The Bernard Flinks Drive, Grip, and Focus video is what I'm using right now. Its really, really worth the money. The reason I recommend getting the video/instructor, is because if you try and do it off what other people tell you or by articles/books, you will end up putting more mistakes on your dog. The more mistakes on your dog, the harder everything will be down the road because they will revert back to their early, foundation training. Its better to make sure you do it right the first time. I re-taught heeling to my dog a handful of times (among other commands I initially fouled up) and every mistake comes out when you trial. If I would've just gotten the video 2 yrs ago and joined a club then, we would be in a much better place in our training. Hope this helps! Good luck with your dog!

Teach the Basic Position (=dog sitting attentively on your left) via focus on the ball/toy. At first, the focus may only last a second or two, but reward with good timing and gradually increase the time. Transfer the focus to you by requiring eye contact in order to get the toy. Associate this position with a command. If the dog can focus on you for 20-30 seconds you can probably beging moving a step at a time to teach the position in motion. The best advice I ever got on this subject is to remember that the heel position is a position, not an action. I'm sure the Flink's tape will help you visualize this. Good Luck.

john that makes sense

mine will heel perfectly while walking but has yet to figure out if i am standing there and say fuss that she is supposed to come to the basic possition

I agree- the Flinks Drive Focus and Grip DVD will go a long way to help you retrain your dog. It is not a matter of the dog not knowing how to heel, but in fact, a lack of attention and focus.

I think the DVD is well worth the money and it costs less than most OB classes in my area. They don't even scratch the information that can be gleaned out of that DVD.