Ripley, my male GSD, is almost 6 months old. His heeling is coming along really well, except for eye contact. I get great eye contact when we stop, but virtually none while we're walking.

Thus far I've only tried treats to get his eye contact. I was actually surprised that this didn't work because he's a serious chow hound. I've gotten mixed results with the treats. If I use his favorite treats (Baa Baa Q's & raw bacon) he forgets that he's supposed to be heeling and constantly jumps up for the treat. If I use a less favorite treat, he just ignores it. I was going to buy one of the vests so that I can put his ball on a string in the upper pocket and see if that works.

I guess my first question is whether I should even be worrying about the eye contact at his young age?

If the answer is yes, then I need some suggestions on how to achieve it.

Stop heeling work.

Start over.

Demand eye contact first, then progress to heeling with continued eye contact.

I don't have a whole lot of time right now, but I'll hit this thread again tonight.

Maybe some real training Guru will help you out in the meantime.

Sorry about all the spelling errors, can't get back in to fix them, and I just posted. It's not that I can't spell, I just type too fast and don't pay attention!

With my dog, I made sure that I had eye contact in all positions, using clicker/food as a treat, before I moved on to integrating it with heeling.

Like Jean said, if the dog is making eye contact under all sorts of distractions, in multiple positions (even if you are sitting down, even if you're on the floor, hmmm have to try that one), and at a distance, then move on to heeling.

Food is by far the best reward to use for eye contact.

First get the behaviour, then give it a name, then conflict training, such as toss the food on the ground, the dog must not look at it, must look at you, then release for reward.

I meant Jenn, sorry!

Id say to continue to work on the eye contact while the dog is sitting in the heel position. You want to develop a name for the eye contact while in this position so the dog will know what your talking about later when you need to ask for it. Go back to using the treats the dog is crazy for. I believe you may need to learn how to treat your dog. Bend your left arm, keep the palm facing down, have the treat pinned between your thumb and your hand.You will be revealing just enough of the treat on the bottom side of your hand for your dog to nip at. Your hand will be at the elevation required for your dog to be pointing its nose/head straight up.Treat your dog like this while working on eye contact while the dog is sitting in heel position. Treat for eye contact and then take the treat away. As soon as you take a step hold your hand back in the treating position and let your dog nip at it while you are walking. Take like one or two steps.Stop, your dog sits, gives eye contact, reward and then do it again.Its alot of treating at first but you are establishing the excersise for now and giving your dog a reason to be focused on what you all are doing together.The dog wont be jumping every where because you are keeping your hand in the same position and all it can do is push its nose up into the flat palm of your hand and nip at the food. Its alot easier to show than it is to write about it. Any way thats what Id probably do if I were you and using treats.

Once youve accomplished doing this you still have to do eye contact proofing excersises.

Thanks guys! These are some good suggestions. I think that I fell down on the job by not giving the eye contact a word.

He does give my eye contact whenever I tell him he's a "good boy" (during any kind of obedience exercise). However, I didn't want to tell him that he's a good boy when we're heeling and he's not looking at me, because I, obviously, use "good boy" when he's doing something right.

I guess I'll start over with a word for eye contact and do a one-step heeling until he gets it.

You may want to start with a full length mirror in front of you. This way you can reward the head up position without looking down at the dog. I have found the eye contact method to become a forging problem in motion. The dog will naturally begin to wrap around to the front to maintain eye contact.
i would reward the focus on the left shoulder while looking straight ahead into a mirror. This will prevent the forging in the future.