ok here is the thing. with berlin she does a real nice heel in motion and when i stop she sits. now my problem is that when she is in front(sitting right in front of me) and i say fuss she does not come around to the basic position.

so this is probly very easy and i am probly just tired and not thinking right so how do teach them to come to the basic position



ideas

It's kind of like a seperate command/training all together.

I used to do this thing where I step back as if I was calling the dog, saying "Heel!" eagerly, letting the dog follow the leash, walking forward so the dog is behind me, and then letting the dog go to the left position. Then I just make my movements less subtle, and a few days after the dog will usually just do the movement on her own without any help from me apart from following the leash. And then off-leash afterwards. I'm not sure how it should actually be done though, but I've had relative success with that method.

I also taught one of my dogs to do the finish on the right side by luring her with food to make a tiny circle on my right and then sit beside me. However I tried luring my other dog and saw he was doing a certain movement wherein he was constantly looking at me and just shifting his back legs until he reached the position. I don't know if that would be right or not.

OK, bear with me 'cause I stink at verbalizing this. My first step for getting the heel from the front is to make sure the dog understands the heel position first.
I start by moving my right leg out and dragging my left saying heel and encouraging them to go sideways with me. once that is solid then I move my left leg back and around I guess backwards quarter turn.
when this is solid I do them while moving. you'll see they get out of position sometimes, but they should be rotating their buts towards you, and going sideways to get back into position.
when this is all going well you have them sit stay and go so they are not quite in front of you (off to your left) and give the command to heel. What you have been working on should get them a better idea of what to do. At this point my dogs usually go right to heel. Hopefully I didn't muck that up to badly.

Jeff,
The method you use to teach the heel position ("find the leg") is similar to Ivan's methods: moving in quadrants and having the dog scot it's butt over to remain next to the your leg.

It is however, a separate exercise from the moving heel position at first, and not so intuitively obvious to the dog as it is to the human. By that I mean just because the dog knows the proper position while a handler is moving does not mean he will immediately generalize that knowledge to a handler that is stationary. You will need to help direct his movements into the desired position until he understands the concept.

The same applies to the "go to heel" from a front sit position: that also must be taught as a separate exercise. Just because the dog will follow your leg when you move in small lateral increments, doesn't mean he will immediately generalize that he must move around you into position when he is in a front sit.

In fact many OB competitors use a different command (ie "place", "finish", etc) for that movement, or teach two different commands for the right-hand finish and the left hand finish.

It has worked for me for years now so I don't know what to tell you.