# Heads Up Heeling



## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

I wanted to get opinions on this training technique:

http://grammozis.de/Freeheeling.htm

Any drawbacks you can see?


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## JKlatsky (Apr 21, 2007)

I know this is very similar to how Claudia Romard teaches heeling. She demonstrated it at a seminar that I went to with my older dog...it seems to take some time to develop the "feel" for how to do it without getting your hands totally destroyed, which is why I didn't bother to continue it with Argos. (It is also why they say it is important to establish early on with the puppies not to eat your hand)

This is Argos with Claudia. You can see the feet action.



















We started teaching this (actually from this website) to Anka when she was small and I have to say she has pretty prancing heeling and is also very straight. When we switched to the ball (as she got older she was not particularly food motivated) she would swing out more and not be as straight...but then we taught her the flip finish and the IPO turn which straightened her back up and it all seems to be working out nicely. 

I've seen other people with small puppies who have done it much better than I have, and I have to say it looks pretty darn impressive.


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## MTAussie (Dec 9, 2007)

thanks for the link!







I love this! The videos are really awesome and the author does a great job explaining the procedures. I am impressed!!! (and have something new to try!)


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## MTAussie (Dec 9, 2007)

I forgot about the poss. drawbacks, like the author mentions she ended up with one of her dogs jumping, and I can see some having a hard time with this and changing their hand position without some problems.


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## IliamnasQuest (Aug 24, 2005)

I can't watch the video (darn slow dial-up) but the photos look very much like training I saw at a seminar some 15 years or so ago. It was a guy at the seminar showing how he used hot dogs and constantly fed the dog while heeling. He wore leather gloves since you can't ever correct the dog for biting your hands while using the food.

Any method that rewards a dog for being in the proper position (as determined by the handler) is going to work. It's the consistency and choice of reward that suits the dog that makes the method effective. If you reward for straight body/head up then that's what you get. If you reward for curved body, that's what you get.

I've thought about going to the "constant feed" method with Tazer in order to STOP her jumping. She wants to leap up on every step, and with food in my hand I could keep her feet down as I could keep the food at a level where she couldn't jump. But then I run into the whole dilemma of having to wean off of food AND off of using my hand in that position. The more you have to wean away from, the more easy it is to screw up and have a dog de-motivate.

Melanie and the gang in Alaska


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

Melanie,

I took some pictures from the videos on that site.

Here he is working the puppies:










He said if the pups jump up he pushes their noses down with his hand.

Here's another one of him working a single puppy:










As the training progresses he raises his hand:




















I would think if you start by asking for just a couple steps without the jumping and then reward, and use your voice to mark the jumping as incorrect, then maybe you could get rid of the jumping.

I'm not looking for the prancing as much as I'm looking for a straight dog looking up at me. I don't really care for the heeling where the dog curves way around your body in front.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Haven't look at that site much, but I got Kenya heeling pretty straight, head up all the time, but not totally wrapped in front of me and crowding me. Now that the snow is not waist deep we are using our foundation and working on longer periods of heeling and proofing it in different locations. She is not super food motivated, not the slightest bit toy motivated. I'm trying to get away from luring behaviors and wanting to focus more on capturing them when they are offered by the dog. So with Kenya, because I started out in rally where "chatter" is OK, I basically praised her into the position I wanted with the up, flashy attitude I wanted to see and rewarded that. As she figured it out, I put on a prong to really clean up any forging or lagging. I did not let it correct for just being a little flat/lacking attitude, rather I would use my encouragement to bring her back "up". Her favorite "reward" is the "yes...OK...up!" game. Yes is my marker, OK is my release, and her "reward" is getting to jump up on me and me rubbing her down and praising wildly. This keeps her motivated more than and food or toy, so I use this "reward" after longer periods of heeling, practicing changing paces, etc. For some things like reinforcing sits in the correct position, cleaning up tight left turns, etc I will also give her a treat as a reward and that is good enough for those things but when I want her head up and focused AND her attitude really turned on it seems that the "OK up!" game at the end is her favorite reward. We just did some heeling today and did some longer patterns. She is almost to the point where we are doing a BH type pattern (not exactly THE pattern, but with similar turns, paces, amount of steps, stops) I only have to encourage her two or three times along the way. Sometimes she even rears up along side me and as long as she keeps focus and stays in position I actually praise that b/c I'd rather have a little too much excitement than a really flat dog.

We're currently polishing up for the SDA's FO and OB1 which is like BH heeling and then some different practical exercises. Again I started out in rally so what do I know, but this is working for us. I have to work really hard to motivate her, she will not tug on a piece of raw meat!


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## IliamnasQuest (Aug 24, 2005)

Lauri, thanks for the photos! That helps me see what he's doing.

I think that in schutzhund style heeling, you can have your arms up in a "pumping" motion (like if you were power-walking) and this type of training translates over well to that. The dog could always look up at your hand (like in the third photo). In AKC style heeling, you're not allowed to get away with holding your hand there (too obvious as a luring technique) and your hand has to be either relaxed by your side or at your stomach (in the middle, over the belly button). And that causes wrapping in dogs that are used to following the hand. So you'd have to be careful in teaching this style if you're going to do AKC heeling.

Tazer is just a wild thing and I can't move very fast these days, which frustrates her to no end. She has learned to throw herself into heel position (left finish) and does it with huge enthusiasm. I want to control the enthusiasm without dampening it much, and that's where we run into problems. I'll have to see what I can do with the hand (she does know targeting to my hand, but it's not a really firm behavior). I've only been working a couple of steps but she starts off with a jump and then adds in some barking .. *L* .. she wants me to MOVE and my toes have been really sore, so walking fast is not possible for me. 

Poor Tazer - a fast dog with a slow owner!

Melanie and the gang


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## maddoxsb (Apr 17, 2006)

I apologize if you answered this somewhere in your posts, but can you tell me how long it takes to train a dog (very generally speaking) to heel with such precision and enthusiasm? If a dog already has a pretty solid grasp of basic obedience and if you work on the skill each day, how long would it take before such results would be evident? 

That might be too subjective a situation to answer with a number like "1 month" or "6 months," but I didn't know if you could offer a ballpark figure. 

Those videos were amazing. Thanks for sharing them!


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

I'd say, about a year if you have a motivated dog starting from scratch. A few months if you already have a dog with a solid heel. 

That is really something you want your dog to do for competition only. It would be very hard on them physically and mentally to heel like that ALL the time. 

You start out with not expecting more than a few steps, then 10, then 15, then 20, then 30seconds of good heeling, then one minute, and so on. The biggest challenge is teaching them to maintain their focus among distractions. 

Though it is great to teach the dog to have this kind of concentration, focus, and discipline, it is handy in a lot of situations. 

Like at times, I'm having a hard time walking Keeta by barking dogs (and loose dogs). A "Foos" command and she snaps into position, holds her head up (though she is trying to roll her eyes and keep an eye on the other dog!), and heels prancing for as long as I ask her too. 

It took me about two years to get her there, but didn't start training her until she was about two years old. And I need to continue with the maintenance training, or she has trouble maintaining that focus in heavy distraction. 

It helps a lot. I wouldn't be able to walk her through a vet's waiting room without this training in place.


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## maddoxsb (Apr 17, 2006)

Thanks so much, Lucia for that great response. I get it. I hadn't thought about the negative effect of a prolonged heel like that. I appreciate your response!


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## lcht2 (Jan 8, 2008)

another method is putting a favorite toy in your arm pitt (the side that you want to heel) when they look up reward..its all just focus work.


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## gagsd (Apr 24, 2003)

Speaking from experience.... Putting the favorite toy in your armpit is a super way to get an unwarranted partial mastectomy


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