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If you want her to sit when you stop mark it EVERY time her butt hits the ground & treat. Treat up above her nose & from the front.

When you stopped at 1:24 you lost the dog's focus, because you didn't mark & treat when she sat & she started looking around & BEHIND you for her treat.

Anne, thanks! I agree what you are saying. But if she sits behind me, should I still mark and reward at this point? You are right in that she does not have a ton of focus for extended training of this type, so I don't want to lose her by being too picky, but I'd like to avoid delveloping bad habits, too.

Very nice work! I have a couple of suggestions :

Try to think in smaller steps. I would work on the sit in heel position separately from the actual heel. In the video you are marking and rewarding the sit, the heeling is not being marked and rewarded at all.

Be careful with holding your left hand up with the food in it. She is looking at your hand and that is a very hard cue to fade. You can build some time between the mark and the reward so that you can let your left hand hang naturally, leave the food in the bag and reach for it after you mark. Remember that you are marking a specific moment in time, and also that the mark is a release, so it doesn't matter if the dog gets out of position or whatever after the mark.

She is a beautiful dog, good luck with her!

I can't tell from you vid if you are giving her a command to heel. I don't think that I have heard it, so I am assuming that you are free forming this posiiton at this point. IF so, let me go back & say... When she is in the position that you want (by you side in a heel at a sit) mark it. That is your beginning heeling position for which you will eventually use the 'heel' command to get. I would teach that spot & them name it & then move around like I said in the last post & expect her to follow my positions & mark when she does it correctly. I said to do that later since you had already started to move forward with her. But, I, personally, solidly teach the position before moving forward, but that's just me. I want my dog to know that when I say 'Foss'(heel) that they are going to do what ever they have to do to get into that position. When they can do that solidly for a week or so, THEN I start to take steps to move forward.

Whatever way you want to teach it...the dog doesn't get rewarded until it is in the proper posiiton (since she now knows where you want her, otherwise you would be marking & reward for any effort) she would get a negative marker for the wrong posiiton. If she needs to move up, she will figure it out by the negative mark or a positive mark. Wait her out & let her figure it out. She will.

There is a difference between being too picky & crating bad habits at the get go. I would be a bit picky, because fixing errors is alot harder & takes tons more time. Unfortunately, I know this from experience as do most people that have trained a few of dogs & made errors. It's a real PTA.

If you expect her to sit when you stop: mark the sit at the stop.

I know that it can get exciting when the dog starts to figure out what you are wanting, & you want to teach more, & more, but don't go too fast. 'Enjoy the ride' as Randy puts it. You will still get there.

I hope that helps. It's hard for me to try to break things down & type it. Not always sure that I say what I mean to say. I try.

Anne and Sarah, yes, that's exactly what I was looking for. I think I need to just work on getting the sit (heel position) correct for now. (I have not put a command to the behavior yet.)