I agree with Susan, I think the handlers that has his dog rest his chin on his tummy is simply a preference but ,like you,I like a nice here in front with the dog nicely in front of me looking at me but not resting his head on my tummy.
SOme judges like to see that and some like the chin on the tummy,I have see both likes.

 Quote: susan tuck

stick your belly way out.

Is it okay to just eat more chocolate so my belly sticks out more on its own?

I'll give it a try (your suggestion, I mean).

Thanks!

lol Anita, you and your chocolate

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm choclate.

So I was just wondering what exactly is covered on the competition obedience video if not the things originally mentioned, like the front and finish? Is it exclusively keeping the dog at pace with you?

Here's the link to the DVD Sara: http://www.leerburg.com/304.htm

The most important thing you will learn from this DVD in my opinion is how to maintain consistent eye contact with your dog.

It shows how to train the sit/down/stand commands on a log (or small table) so the dog learns to collect himself and obey the command on the spot and not move around.

The training of the initial commands, then the eye contact, then the heeling steps is broken down very intelligently and into small steps that are easy to follow.
It's practically foolproof!

Now that I've watched the DVD about 20 times, I'm wondering about finishes and sits/downs in motion and so on, but to be fair the DVD contains a huge amount of information and will keep you busy for a long time.

The important thing is to not rush through the steps of training, like many people are tempted to do. For the first few weeks, you only do about 5-6 steps in heel before releasing. And this is once you have perfect eye contact from the dog.

It'll probably be many months before you're ready to move onto the more complicated stuff.

Tom shows you left turns, right turns, about turns, 360 degree turns, automatic sit at the halt, how to teach the dog to keep their butt tucked in when circling or turning to the left, speeding up aand... I think that's it for the heeling, from my memory at least!

I highly recommend this DVD - it's one of my favourites so far.
I haven't gotten the Flinks ones yet (the focus one and the heeling one, which hopefully will be out soon) but will soon.

Yuko, one thing maybe you can help me with. I've seen the Competition Heeling video once. Can't locate it at the moment to rewatch, but one thing I vividly remember hearing (or think I remember) at the very beginning was a statement something like "It's important to note this is how we would start a young adult dog. If we're starting a young puppy the approach would be much different." That sort of put a damper on my spirits, as my pup was already almost a year old so I had no idea whether I should use the approach in this video or not. Did "start this way" apply only to the log/table bit? There was nothing said about how a young puppy should have been started? Does "this is how we start a young adult" mean you should use this on a dog that's had essentially no training at all, or had basic training a la Ed's "Basic Obedience" video, or some other method of beginning training? If I had to do it all over again (or I'm someone else who's just got a new young puppy), what do I make of "we don't start a young puppy this way"? What part of "this way" wouldn't apply so what chapter in the video would I start at, and how do I know at what age or stage of training to start it? I'm thinking that in my case, I need to just forget my dog knows anything and do everything from the very beginning?

Am I overanalyzing this, or did I not hear that statement correctly and I should just go back to my corner and chill out? I'm so confused!

lol, Anita the video assumes that the dog already knows the basic commands.
You do see a young pup (a 3-4 month German shorthaired pointer, I believe) working on the log on the very basics. She learns to stay on the log when her handler circles around her.

If you watch the older dogs (as in, over 6 months), they already know the commands and the handlers use a lot of leash "pops" to get the dogs to obey on the log. For example, the command "platz" followed by downward pops to get the dog to down (done with a flat collar on the log, not prong, it's not so much a correction as it is insisting that the dog "platz").

Obviously with young puppies you don't want to be popping them around so much. Ed's marker training method is better for that

Also, it's too much to expect the kind of attention and eye contact from a young pup that's shown on the video.
They don't have the attention span yet, so you'd be teaching the easier commands with markers for babies.

Very young pups should be taught the commands, but only using motivation and play. You can excite them and coax them into coming to you; giving them a pop on the leash to get them to you (like in the video) works great for the older pups, but isn't a good way to go with the babies. Once they're old enough to be introduced to the correction phase, the video would apply perfectly.

The heeling training uses food (and toys too) to motivate the dog, but you also give prong corrections when the dog breaks eye contact with you.

It's up to you, really You can see for yourself if your pup is mature enough to move on to the attention exercises. It's also up to you to decide if your pup is old enough to go through a correction phase. It's demanding on the dog, so best to wait until the pup is more mentally mature.

If your pup is well bonded to you, is used to coming (happily) to you when called and pays attention to you during training, it's probably ready to go through Tom's initial attention exercises (no corrections there).
If the pup knows the basic commands pretty well, you could start working it on a log with lots of motivation and again, starting the eye contact exercises shown by Tom.

I can give you my example; it was my first time doing real training so I was worried about screwing my pup up
By 5 months he was doing great with the commands on a small table (I found one in a local playground that's perfect for the work).
I was lucky in that he was always extremely attentive and focused on me, so the exercises where you get the dog to follow you around and watch you were easy for us and we breezed through those.
In my case, I found that it took a couple of months for him to get used to catching food treats from my mouth. Until he was 7-8 months he couldn't catch the treats and would drop them and then take them off the ground (which is completely counter productive in getting eye contact! lol).
Unfortunately I couldn't use the method of having him take the treat from my mouth because he will grab my face (and rip it off ) if I tried to do that.

It wasn't until he was maybe 7 months old that I started the "leash pop" (with a flat collar) method to reenforce the commands - sit/down on a table, and the come to front.

In my case, my pup wasn't ready to start heeling until almost 9 months. I'm glad I waited for him to mature a bit before starting corrections though; his obedience work is always super happy and quick
I got to the point where I would put him into a "sit" in heel position and he would give me good eye contact. I would then drop pieces of food from my mouth and he would catch them.

He seemed a little confused when we first started the heel; he'd break eye contact as soon as we started walking (since he didn't know the command he'd assume that I'd released him).
We went back and worked a little more on the "watch me" command.

By the time he was 9 months old, he finally "got it" and the heeling work went smoothly from there :-)
Now when he breaks eye contact and I give him a quick prong pop, he understands the correction and gives eye contact.

It did take a while to get to this point though. Maybe experienced trainers can teach the eye contact thing more quickly (probably, haha) but if you're a novice like me, it's probably best to take it slow and not confuse your pup by asking too much of it too soon.

In my experience, expecting the pup to maintain eye contact is a much more difficult exercise than the simple "sit, down, come, stay etc.".

I hope this helps a little, I apologize for rambling on.
I guess in the end it's up to you to watch the dogs performing in the video and judge for yourself whether your pup is ready for that kind of work. Better to take your time in any case; the worst thing you could do is rush through the program before your pup is mature enough and use too much compulsion on him.
That'll suck his drive to work right out of him and it'll be impossible to get him to progress any further.

Good luck!!

Let us know how it goes with your pup if you go with the DVD!!

I'd definitely be interested in finding out how others progress through this. If you can find a way to progress more quickly than I did, please let me know!! I was extra cautious and took my time, but I'm sure that if done right you can teach the heeling sooner than 9 months.

(And Tom does show older dogs being worked with these methods. The only problem is that when dogs are started older they tend to have lost some of their drive. They're not as excited as the younger dogs over the food treats. As long as you worked your pup with a lot of motivation and food since it was a baby, you shouldn't have a problem with the loss of drive)

Yes!!! That's exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for. Makes perfect sense, and no, it wasn't rambling or too long. I will hunt down that video and study it some more. My club's training director has been pestering me to do more attention work, so this is perfect. Thanks so much.

I also hope it helps the other new puppy owners. I've been following Katherine and Robbin's posts with great interest, thinking "Now why weren't they asking all these questions when my guy was that age, so my life could have been easier?"