# Swing rear to the right when heeling



## Fervious (Apr 30, 2016)

My boy lacks rear awareness. He is great at heeling and gladly does it offleash. I've been slowly weaning him off rewards and eye contact.

However, when heeling, if I turn to face to my left, his butt does not move with my legs. This issue does not occur if I face to my right. 

I've tried doing box work and tapping his rear with a stick, but he seems oblivious to the stick. Are there any exercises I can use to work on this? I've been working on teaching him to back up but would like more ideas


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## Steve Strom (Oct 26, 2013)

You can try heeling in a left circle, smaller and smaller till its tight enough he has to move back out of your way. Make that last step with your left foot into and in front of him. Or you can try looking left followed by a little pop of the leash and then turning into him. That can teach him to get back.


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## car2ner (Apr 9, 2014)

great question. My boy will back up straight along a wall but leave the wall and his butt goes further and further away. I'm doing more spins to perhaps help him but that is still a forward movement.


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## Steve Strom (Oct 26, 2013)

car2ner said:


> great question. My boy will back up straight along a wall but leave the wall and his butt goes further and further away. I'm doing more spins to perhaps help him but that is still a forward movement.


I know the idea of the wall, but I'd quit using it before it becomes a crutch. Maybe think about going back to just correct position with no movement and where you're rewarding from. Then one step, two steps looking for straight sits and no turning away.


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## Fervious (Apr 30, 2016)

Steve Strom said:


> You can try heeling in a left circle, smaller and smaller till its tight enough he has to move back out of your way. Make that last step with your left foot into and in front of him. Or you can try looking left followed by a little pop of the leash and then turning into him. That can teach him to get back.


Giving him a correction isn't going to teach him... I'd rather teach him what I want first before I correct him for not doing it


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Look up perch work. That's to teach rear end awareness


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## ausdland (Oct 21, 2015)

Fervious said:


> My boy lacks rear awareness. He is great at heeling and gladly does it offleash. I've been slowly weaning him off rewards and eye contact.
> 
> However, when heeling, if I turn to face to my left, his butt does not move with my legs. This issue does not occur if I face to my right.
> 
> I've tried doing box work and tapping his rear with a stick, but he seems oblivious to the stick. Are there any exercises I can use to work on this? I've been working on teaching him to back up but would like more ideas


When heeling, I hold the lead in my right hand behind me and give a little tug when turning left. 
With front paws on the box and turning left, I'll turn her head left with a treat if she doesn't follow and stay with me.


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

If you control his head the rest of his body will follow.When we practiced left pivots for Rally I moved my hand over to the left in front of his nose at his eye level.He followed my hand and scooted his rear to the right.Eventually he began to watch for my left shoulder to dip and would turn and swing around in position.Maybe practicing pivot/halt to both left and right would be helpful.

Like Jax said,perch work is an excellent method.


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## Steve Strom (Oct 26, 2013)

Fervious said:


> Giving him a correction isn't going to teach him... I'd rather teach him what I want first before I correct him for not doing it


Its not a correction and it has to do more with his positioning and attention for the turn then it does with not pivoting. Just something to try, or not.


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## cdwoodcox (Jul 4, 2015)

I used a vocal cue when teaching turn 's. For left hand turns I would say swing while using the leash to turn him with me. After a couple days of this I quit using the leash and just the vocal cue. Once he had that down I phased out the vocal cue. Plus a lot of random circles in both directions. 
Now if I could get him to stop wanting to get a half step ahead of me I would be good.


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## Nigel (Jul 10, 2012)

Fervious said:


> Giving him a correction isn't going to teach him... I'd rather teach him what I want first before I correct him for not doing it


For the quote, nevermind, it's already been clarified.

I agree with the perch work as suggested earlier.


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