When your puppy has met the following two milestones, he is ready to learn left and right turns, as well as left and right about turns.
1. Your puppy should be successfully staying fairly straight and in good position when heeling straight for five or six steps off the fence with little to no help from reward placement.
2. Your puppy should be proficient at the quarter turn to the left while in a stationary position.
The “Right Here” Cue and Its Application to the Left Turn
I like to teach the left turn and the left about turn first because the left turn helps to teach puppies two very important skills. First of all, left turns encourage puppies to stay back and not forge. Secondly, puppies learn not to crab. Whenever puppies are experiencing difficulties with either of these very common problems, I will execute either a left turn or a left about turn or I will say the loop left cue, “right here”, and have the puppy loop around to get back behind me while continuing in the same direction. I’ll explain this in more detail shortly.
The “right here” is a cue that tells your puppy to loop back behind you. We use this cue for left turns and for backing up for the short term. In order to accomplish a left turn without looping around, a dog must move rotate their body spinning on an axis to stay in position. Their rears must actually go a little backwards while their front ends move forward in order to maintain heel position. Most puppies are unable to physically manipulate their clumsy bodies into left turns. However, if this rotation isn’t done, the dog will end up facing the handler or possibly bumping the handler.
A similar scenario plays out for the young puppy who gets out of position by forging ahead. Most puppies are too clumsy to coordinate backing up until they are older.
Therefore, for the short term, we teach the puppies to loop around to get themselves back in position when they get out of position and when they perform left turns. This temporary looping around actually accomplishes two important goals. Not only does it give them a temporary means for maintaining heel position, it also gives them practice in a formal “finish”. Even seasoned obedience dogs need to know how to get in heel position when in a stationary position.
Next Level Left Turns and Backing Up
Once puppies are proficient with the foundation work taught in this book and once puppies are a little older than the puppies in these videos, we begin teaching puppies rear awareness exercises. These exercises give puppies the skills to rotate their bodies so that they no longer need to make a loop to keep from getting ahead of or bumping into the handler.
We also teach our puppies to back up so that when they get out of heel position on a walk, they can simply back up instead of looping back around.
These skills are beyond the scope of this book and aren’t necessary for puppies who are not going to do competitive obedience. Mastering the basics in this book will give an excellent understanding of staying in heel position for the non-competitive pet dog.
The Left Turn
The left turn is almost the same as the quarter turn to the left that we’ve already taught our puppy while in a stationary position. To execute the left turn while moving, take a step straight with your right foot. Then take your first turning step by planting your left foot out at a 45 degree angle from your right foot. As you take this step pause, turn your shoulders to your left, point behind you, and say “right here”. The puppy should loop behind you. Mark the second he is far enough back to successfully complete the loop. Mark and reward every left turn initially. When the puppy is proficient with the left turn when you say “right here” and point, start fading the hints. Quit saying “right here” if you want to. Slowly stop pointing but continue dropping your shoulder as you do when you point. The end result should be a puppy who is attentive to your body movement and will loop back to turn with just a drop of the shoulder from the handler.
The Left About Turn
We use the “right here” cue for the left about turn and the puppy makes a similar but bigger loop to the left in order not to end up ahead of the handler. Let’s discuss the footwork and hand motions that go along with the cue.
When executing a left about turn, take your first step forward with the right foot. As you take this step, point behind you with the left arm and say “right here”.
Take your second step with the left foot turned at about a 75 degree angle away from your body. This second step should be a fairly short step. Continue pointing behind you.
With the third step, bring your right foot around the left in order to bring it in such a position to form a “T” with the right foot being the horizontal line of the “T” and the left foot being the vertical line of the “T”. If the puppy does not get back behind you, repeat the “right here” cue. After this third step, you should have completed the 180 degree turn and be facing the opposite direction from the direction you started the turn.
The fourth step should be a step with the left foot that actually makes you overshoot the turn. This overshooting the turn will give the puppy the chance to get back around behind you. With this fourth step place your left foot slightly behind your right and turned slightly away from your body. Continue rotating your body and pointing your left arm behind you. For a brief second, you will have turned 270 degrees. Then with your fifth step with the right foot, you will turn back slightly to the right undoing the overshooting turn and completing a 180 degree turn.
The video of this will give you a good visual of the process. We’ve slowed the video down and there are detailed instructions.
Right Turns
The right about turn is the only about turn you will ever do in regular obedience. This is the only way that most people ever train their dogs to do an about turn. Both about turns are used in rally. I like to teach both because they both have applications in trouble shooting certain very common heeling problems.
The 90 degree right turn is simple. Take your last step forward with your right foot. Then take your next step by placing your left foot about twelve inches in front of your right food. The left foot for this step should be turned slightly to the left. Continue walking forward in the new direction by placing the right foot in front of the left on the new line.
About Right Turns
About right turns require some foot work from the handler. About right turns can also cause some problems for the puppy. Therefore, the about right turn is the last turn for me to teach most puppies.
Let’s discuss the footwork first. There are several methods for footwork for the about right turn. Any method is fine as long as your feet remain somewhat together for most of the turn. I heard so many opinions on how to execute an about turn that at one point, I simply couldn’t seem to keep from tripping over my own feet or tripping my dog up. I think the most helpful advice I received was to quit overthinking my foot work and concentrate solely on keeping my knees together so that I didn’t throw my leg out and trip my dog.
However, if you like step by step instructions, I’ll go over the two most popular ways to handle your footwork.
This is the method I now use when showing my own dogs. This method works the best for me.
My first step is a step with my left foot that puts my left foot in front of and touching my right foot forming a “T”. My left foot is in the position of the horizontal line of the “T” and my right foot forms the vertical line of the “T”. This vertical line is not quite at a 90 degree angle as in a “T”. After this first step, my body ends up facing about 75-80 degrees to the right.
My second step is taken with my right foot. I place this right foot turned in the new direction facing backwards from where it started. It is up against the left foot placing my feet in a somewhat “T” position again. The right foot still forms the “T”, but after this step, the “T” turns upside down.
On the third step, the left foot steps off in the new direction.
The placement of your feet is not super important. The important thing is that your feet along with your knees stay fairly close together.
I actually think the second way might be more popular with other trainers.
