Quote: Jennifer Lee

Then of course I stepped on his poor paw so we took a break.

Been there, done that. Today actually.

Any tips for Klutzy handlers? (j/k!!)

 Quote: Jennifer Lee

Any tips for a dog who get's suspicious of the wall.

A fence then?

 Quote: kelly byrd

 Quote: bob scott

"Crowding" is lost points in AKC and Schutzhund. More so in AKC.They can be pretty anal about it.
How the dog returns to the heel position doesn't matter.
Yrs back I trained it by walking into and bumping the dog out of the way with my knee. That was common at the time. I created a dog that would lean in anticipation of the knee. That's when I decided to train both the flip and the go round. It took all the pressure of off the dog because he had to wait for which command I would give him.
Now, with marker training that problem is no longer.

Koenig has MAJOR issues with crowding me. To the extent that he'll sometimes FALL DOWN at the sit/heel position if I move suddenly to the right.

Bob- you mentioned you used to use the bump with the knee trick. Any other ideas? I'd hate to make Koenig so super aware of my knee that he's leaning.

Our Fuss is far from polished, but the leaning can get very extreme some days, others it's not an issue.

One of the (many) reasons a dog leans on the handler is because he doesn't have to keep his attention on you. The contact with you allows him to know right where you're at without actually paying attention to you. he can watch the world go by and still know your exact position.
Work on more (longer) eye contact from him before you start adding steps.
I had a Dane/GSD that did this and he damn near took my knee out on a regular basis.
I broke him of that by placing a strap around my thigh with tacks protruding outward. Effective yes, but I'm a nice old granpa now and would just make a ton of turns. If he didn't follow then it would be a "Nope" and loss of reward OR a correction if that's a preferred method.

 Quote: bob scott

 Quote: kelly byrd

 Quote: bob scott

"Crowding" is lost points in AKC and Schutzhund. More so in AKC.They can be pretty anal about it.
How the dog returns to the heel position doesn't matter.
Yrs back I trained it by walking into and bumping the dog out of the way with my knee. That was common at the time. I created a dog that would lean in anticipation of the knee. That's when I decided to train both the flip and the go round. It took all the pressure of off the dog because he had to wait for which command I would give him.
Now, with marker training that problem is no longer.

Koenig has MAJOR issues with crowding me. To the extent that he'll sometimes FALL DOWN at the sit/heel position if I move suddenly to the right.

Bob- you mentioned you used to use the bump with the knee trick. Any other ideas? I'd hate to make Koenig so super aware of my knee that he's leaning.

Our Fuss is far from polished, but the leaning can get very extreme some days, others it's not an issue.

One of the (many) reasons a dog leans on the handler is because he doesn't have to keep his attention on you. The contact with you allows him to know right where you're at without actually paying attention to you. he can watch the world go by and still know your exact position.
Work on more (longer) eye contact from him before you start adding steps.
I had a Dane/GSD that did this and he damn near took my knee out on a regular basis.
I broke him of that by placing a strap around my thigh with tacks protruding outward. Effective yes, but I'm a nice old granpa now and would just make a ton of turns. If he didn't follow then it would be a "Nope" and loss of reward OR a correction if that's a preferred method.

I never thought of the attention aspect of it. That makes total sense. I seem to remember he is making good eye contact while leaning though. I'll have to double check that one tomorrow. I'd heard of the tack/sharp thing/wire brush trick before. I'm hesitant to do that to the kid. We'll go the 'nope' route for now. Thanks!

 Quote: bob scott

 Quote: kelly byrd

 Quote: bob scott

"Crowding" is lost points in AKC and Schutzhund. More so in AKC.They can be pretty anal about it.
How the dog returns to the heel position doesn't matter.
Yrs back I trained it by walking into and bumping the dog out of the way with my knee. That was common at the time. I created a dog that would lean in anticipation of the knee. That's when I decided to train both the flip and the go round. It took all the pressure of off the dog because he had to wait for which command I would give him.
Now, with marker training that problem is no longer.

Koenig has MAJOR issues with crowding me. To the extent that he'll sometimes FALL DOWN at the sit/heel position if I move suddenly to the right.

Bob- you mentioned you used to use the bump with the knee trick. Any other ideas? I'd hate to make Koenig so super aware of my knee that he's leaning.

Our Fuss is far from polished, but the leaning can get very extreme some days, others it's not an issue.

One of the (many) reasons a dog leans on the handler is because he doesn't have to keep his attention on you. The contact with you allows him to know right where you're at without actually paying attention to you. he can watch the world go by and still know your exact position.
Work on more (longer) eye contact from him before you start adding steps.
I had a Dane/GSD that did this and he damn near took my knee out on a regular basis.
I broke him of that by placing a strap around my thigh with tacks protruding outward. Effective yes, but I'm a nice old granpa now and would just make a ton of turns. If he didn't follow then it would be a "Nope" and loss of reward OR a correction if that's a preferred method.

GASP! I'm telling Thunder to watch out.

 Quote: katie finlay

 Quote: bob scott

 Quote: kelly byrd

 Quote: bob scott

"Crowding" is lost points in AKC and Schutzhund. More so in AKC.They can be pretty anal about it.
How the dog returns to the heel position doesn't matter.
Yrs back I trained it by walking into and bumping the dog out of the way with my knee. That was common at the time. I created a dog that would lean in anticipation of the knee. That's when I decided to train both the flip and the go round. It took all the pressure of off the dog because he had to wait for which command I would give him.
Now, with marker training that problem is no longer.

Koenig has MAJOR issues with crowding me. To the extent that he'll sometimes FALL DOWN at the sit/heel position if I move suddenly to the right.

Bob- you mentioned you used to use the bump with the knee trick. Any other ideas? I'd hate to make Koenig so super aware of my knee that he's leaning.

Our Fuss is far from polished, but the leaning can get very extreme some days, others it's not an issue.

One of the (many) reasons a dog leans on the handler is because he doesn't have to keep his attention on you. The contact with you allows him to know right where you're at without actually paying attention to you. he can watch the world go by and still know your exact position.
Work on more (longer) eye contact from him before you start adding steps.
I had a Dane/GSD that did this and he damn near took my knee out on a regular basis.
I broke him of that by placing a strap around my thigh with tacks protruding outward. Effective yes, but I'm a nice old granpa now and would just make a ton of turns. If he didn't follow then it would be a "Nope" and loss of reward OR a correction if that's a preferred method.

GASP! I'm telling Thunder to watch out.

Loss of reward, be that a tug a treat or a bite, is Thunder's motivation to work. No tacks needed now!
It's all about ME keeping MY head now.

 Quote: betty landercasp

My dog wants to sit perpendicular at the heel.
It is a hard habit to break.
I rewarded "sit" at halt too soon, did not wait for the
proper sit. Now I don't seem to be able to get a proper sit
consistently.
Is that a fixable deal?

Look at where you are rewarding your dog. Is it in front of the dog, or to the dogs right? This will make your dog turn, in anticipation of the reward. So use that to your advantage, and reward the dog on his/her left. So that every time you stop, they are thinking the reward is going to come up the left side. Or if you are luring, they are "following" it towards their left as they are sitting. This will swing their butt in to the right, and help create a habit of sitting straight.

Reward location is very important in heeling. One reason to always mix it up is so you don't start to see body anticipation. Even if the dog isn't breaking their focus on you, if they know where that reward comes from every time, they will start to go that direction with their body. If you have the heel position you want, mix up your rewards to keep it. If you have something to fix, reward in a location that will encourage the opposite behavior/position. ie dog forges, reward from behind them, dog turns towards the right in the sit, reward from their left, dog tends to lag a little, reward with a throw out front, etc

Also, most people are to quick to start walking. Until you can stand in one spot, and turn to both your left and right, 1/4 turns, 1/2 turns and continuous circular turns, take a step forward, backwards, turn backwards, step right, etc with your dog staying in proper position, you really aren't ready to start walking forward. If you can get all of these turns, then your dog really knows where heel position is, and walking, doing patterns, etc will be easy.

This is the Reader's Digest Condensed version of how I do focus and heeling. Focus Work for Heeling

There seem to be several conflicting methods described in this thread. It might be a good idea to pick one and stay consistent with it.

 Quote:

Also, most people are to quick to start walking. Until you can stand in one spot, and turn to both your left and right, 1/4 turns, 1/2 turns and continuous circular turns, take a step forward, backwards, turn backwards, step right, etc with your dog staying in proper position, you really aren't ready to start walking forward. If you can get all of these turns, then your dog really knows where heel position is, and walking, doing patterns, etc will be easy.

Thanks, Kadi, that is very helpful...

 Quote: Kadi_Thingvall

This is the Reader's Digest Condensed version of how I do focus and heeling. Focus Work for Heeling

This is great info, too...I like the info about working from the T-position to solidify the focus...