Curtis, It's never to early to start training. I started when I got my dog at 6wks. We have one fella at the Schutzhund club that works pitbulls. ALL motivational. By the time they are 12-14 wks old, they are like happy little soldiers. Damn near perfect attention, and wonderful heeling. All short duration of course.

Nice David, that's exactly what I've been doing lately.

I play the little behavior shaping game of walking around reinforcing and luring into postions. This really does set a huge foundation for all the skills the dog will need later.

Then I teach basic position, using food. (after eye contact of course, we do that on day freaking one)

Then I start moving . . .and what do you know, the dog's little pea brain lights up as he remembers the game. The most difficult part of heeling for me has always been transitioning between sit postion and walking around with the dog in correct postion. . .duh?? Right?

This way you're breaking it down into smaller parts and the dog already understands what's going on. Makes training a whole helluva lot faster, and you can focus on correct reinforcement using your clicker/voice, food, and/or ball to progress. I also use an e-collar for corrections, I've found it better than leash work because I'm not super fast or sneaky. I can push a button on my clicker or the remote on my e-collar and reward or correct as necessary.

As long as you keep rewarding for eye contact and correct position you don't run into problems. It made the whole thing stupid easy for me, and I'm pretty dumb. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />




As for using the prey item as the focus point and luring the dog that way, I don't really like doing that. Putting a ball under my chin and walking is no different that holding a hotdog in my hand and leading the dog around. Either way, you're going to have to eliminate that lure and teach the dog to do the correct behavior to get reward. It's quicker and easier IMO using food and a clicker to teach what brings reward and build from there than it is to lure longer with a prey item and do the same thing at the end. . .teach the dog to look in your eyes and stay correct to get you to whip out the ball.

Both work though.

I start by hanging out in a area where there are few distractions...except the fact that I smell like a lunchbox because I have food. As the dog accidently falls into position I feed 'em. Since they are really hungry when I start this it is really important to them and they start repeating getting to my left side where the food is. At first it is just about eating in the correct position and my hand ends up where their snout should be. This goes on for quite a while but I start to bring my hands away from the feeding spot and wait until they look at me. I do this for heeling, sit during heeling, front, down everything the dog will have to know in respect to movement and position later on. I don't say anything during this process until the dog starts begging for food by trying to put its body into position. Then I name it.
At the same time I am building drive with a toy in seperate excercises away from the food game. I back tie the dogs and use the tug or ball or whatever as a lure and teach them to make prey on the item. I also teach them to hold it.
Once I have done a few other skills (since this thread is about heeling we'll skip 'em although they are important as to content and order) with the tug or toy I start to integrate it into heeling.
In the mean time healing with food continued and distraction was brought into the game. Every increase in distraction was brought in with a very hungry dog and I also integrated a prong collar ) or e-collar) into the mix. Compulsion is used for distraction only at this point and food is used to reinforce the good stuff. Distraction is met with compulsion, quick painful and without emotion, or even reaction on my part, proper healing is met with verbal, physical, and food reinforcements as appropriate.

Then the tug comes intot he picture instead of food. here a bit of compulsion may be necesary to enforce heeling instead of making prey on the tug...it is no big dweal since I've already introduced compulsion to prevent other behaviors.
How long does it take??? Not long with a young adult, a few days and you should be heeling around with no trouble as long as the work is consistant.
The whole idea is to blend compulsion and inducements in such a manner as to have a dog that can be reliable and happy and understand compulsion when under field work conditions.
The compulsion portion of this is important for dogs that will work in the field, as there is no place or time to extinguish poor behavior and a immediate remedy is necessary for poor heeling (and other skills as well).

OK Van Camp...is this what you're looking for??? I sure don't want to be thought of as someone posting none dog training dog stories on the board and get flamed for it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

the biggest thing i learned is that it is important to teach the position first not the action (did that and nwo i have a dog that will heel beutifully until i stop than she has no clue what to do.

so i am really rethinking how i want to teach heel and have a good dog to teach it too.


btw love the advice here great tool every trainer should become a member of this board