Once your puppy understands how to do a hand touch to get in heel position and will stay seated in heel position giving good eye contact, it’s time to take a short step forward along the fence. At this point in training, puppies have been repeatedly reinforced for sitting still. They have never been reinforced for moving. Therefore, most puppies will tend to sit still when you take that first step forward.
If you take a step forward and your puppy does not move with you, call him. If he still doesn’t come, lure him. As soon as your puppy lifts his butt off the ground, say “yes” and then use reward placement to get him to sit in the new location next to you one step in front of the old location.
If you step forward and the puppy looks away from you just before or as he starts to move, mark and reward quickly as soon as the puppy’s butt leaves the ground and before he has time to look around or at the ground. If the puppy continues to look away from you before starting, you may need to lure a few repetitions to build a habit of continuing to look at you without the brief look at the ground that many puppies tend to do.
Move forward one more step. Wait a few seconds and see if your puppy moves forward with you. Again, mark as soon as his butt leaves the ground and use reward placement to encourage him to sit in correct heel position next to you. Encourage him verbally if he doesn’t move. Don’t lure him again unless he absolutely will not move.
Stop using a lure as soon as the puppy will move without it.
After your puppy has successfully moved forward with you two or three times without a lure or your calling him, mark and reward him while you stand still and he remains seated in heel position. Otherwise, he will start anticipating movement before the trainer moves. Randomly alternate between marking and rewarding for sitting still and for moving while you take one step.
Once this is proficient, we’ll start working on a third skill: sitting when you stop moving. We call this a one-step-and-sit. Practice a few one-step-and-sits. If the puppy moves with you but doesn’t sit, wait. If he takes the step with you and then starts to sit, mark before the puppy is all the way seated. Use reward placement to try to get the puppy straight to prevent a possible bad habit of sitting crooked. Most puppies will try to sit facing you. Reward to the puppy’s left. If the puppy expects that the reward will come from the left, it will compensate for his desire to turn right to face the trainer. It is easier to prevent bad habits from forming than to fix them when they’ve become ingrained.
If the puppy sits almost straight but facing a little bit toward you, take one more step and lure him to follow you. Encourage him to sit straight by placing the reward to the puppy’s left encouraging them to turn away from you. While you are rewarding, be pulling another treat from your bag (which is on your right hip). Treat with your left hand before the puppy has time to get up and turn toward you. Continue treating very quickly as long as the puppy remains in position facing the same way you are facing. The more prone your puppy is to turning to face you, the more you need to do rapid rewards while the puppy is sitting without popping up and turning towards you.
Teach the one-step-and-sit on the fence alternating between marking over and over for simply sitting there, for raising their butt to move forward, and for the complete one-step-and-sit until it is solid. Fix sits that are a little bit crooked with reward placement. If the puppy sits facing you more than he’s facing forward, have him do a hand touch with reward placement to get back in correct position.
Once puppies get the hang of moving when you move, many of them will charge forward too far. If the puppy is just a bit ahead of you, move yourself forward to put the puppy in correct position while you are giving the puppy his reward. Then mark and reward repeatedly while the puppy is in correct position.
Never move yourself to put the puppy in correct position while the puppy is aware of your movement. If a puppy realizes you are moving forward to catch up with him, he will tend to charge ahead even further.
When the puppy is consistently giving good eye contact both while in a stationary position and while moving, is moving when you move, is staying still when you stay still, is sitting when you stop, and is sitting fairly straight without reward placement, it’s time to occasionally add two steps.
Do not do more than one repetition of two steps at heel back to back. Mix it up. Take two steps. Mark and reward. Then go back to one-step-and-sits mixed mixed with marking for moving and marking and rewarding for staying in place. Practice all of these options in random order.
When you are standing still and marking and rewarding eye contact, make sure your puppy is looking at you and not at your hand with the food in it. Hold the food slightly to the rear instead of right above your puppy’s head. If your puppy looks at the food, he’s looking in the wrong place. Practice waiting for him to choose to look away from the food in the extended hand. Mark and reward when the puppy is giving good eye contact.
When all of these behaviors are good, it’s time to start stationary exercises off the fence.
