The heeling exercises are obviously very beneficial for the competitive obedience dog. But what does a family who just wants to take their dog on a leisurely walk do with this training?
Before you leave the house and go out in public, you’ll need to acclimate your puppy to a leash. This process should be seamless. The dog should already be able to focus on you under distractions. The leash is simply one more distraction.
Attach the leash to your dog’s collar or harness. Practice your heeling exercise with the leash loose enough to where it hang down to about the top of your puppy’s legs.
Let’s start this chapter with a discussion on the three types of dog walks and how to handle each type.
The Focused Heeling Walk
If you plan on continuing on to do either competitive obedience or Rally obedience, you’ll need to continue practicing and refining your heeling in various locations, in different types of environments, and under a wide variety of distractions. You’ll continue practicing very much the same way this book teaches with ever increasing expectations with regard to correct position, longer walks, and gradually fewer more random rewards.
The Exercise Walk
The exercise walk can be either a walk or for many a jog or a run. These walks are opportunities for exercise for both handler and dog. For the exercise walk, the dog no longer needs to be giving intense focus to his handler. In fact, we don’t even want the dog giving this type focus. He needs to be watching where he’s going.
What we do want is a dog who stays in reasonably good heel position, who doesn’t criss cross back and forth in front of us, and who gives enough attention to the handler to not drag behind or get out in front or especially to not hit the end of the leash.
All of the work we’ve been doing at home should have taught the dog exactly where heel position is and how to stay there. He should be proficient enough at staying in heel position that he can easily remain in reasonably good position even when looking forward and giving you peripheral vision only.
He should have developed a good habit of not crabbing which is where criss-crossing in front begins. A dog who crabs out in front of a jogger can be dangerous so we love teaching straight heeling for safety reasons.
Initially, I’d take a bag of treats to occasionally refresh your dog with focused heeling. However, the treating can essentially fade away within a few walks. As you quit treating your dog, he will probably quit looking up at you. This is totally fine for the exercise walk. I want my dog to be able to enjoy the sights and sounds around us as long as he is able to keep in relatively good position while he’s looking around. He can do that with peripheral vision.
Good heel position might tend to fade as well which is not what you want. Therefore, you’ll simply shift the reward from food to the opportunity to move forward.
Dogs tend to like to forge ahead. The first time your dog gets out of heel position more than a full body’s length, stop moving or take a couple of steps backwards and say “right here.” Your dog will have already learned to either loop around or back up to reposition himself in heel position. He should have a good understanding of exactly where good heel position is because of the training you’ve given.
Some dogs get so excited about going on an exercise walk that they charge forward as soon as you get out your front door. You may have to stop and cue your dog to get in position multiple times before he gains understanding that the walk comes to a stand still until he gets back in position.
Don’t wait until your dog hits the end of the leash before saying “right here.” If the dog is more than a full body’s length ahead of you, he will have lost sight of you in peripheral vision. When he loses sight of you, charging to the end of the leash is inevitable. Don’t let this happen. Address the problem as soon as he looses you in his peripheral vision.
I have trained many dogs to jog with me without using leash corrections. Withholding the reward of moving forward is a much more effective tool than corrections, even a prong collar. I have used both methods on dozens of dogs before crossing over to reinforcement based training.
In addition, the foundation you’ve given your dog in training sessions will have reinforced heel position so that the dog actually enjoys being there!
The Potty Break or Sniff Walk
There are times when I let my dog have the freedom to guide the walk. These walks are especially important when the dog needs to potty on leash. I let my dogs have full reign of the leash and to lead me to where they want to go. With these walks, it is my responsibility to keep the dog from hitting the end of the leash. There are limits of course and if the dog goes in a direction that I don’t want him to go, I simply call him back to me.
Switching from One Type Walk to Another
You may be wondering how the dog knows what your expectations of him are. How does he know if he can lead the way, if he needs to give focused heeling, or if he needs to stay in reasonably good position for a jog or exercise walk?
What if you choose to start your walk with a potty break and then want to switch to a brisk jog?
Remember from our discussion on generalizing behaviors that dogs are very situational. It is actually very easy for a dog to know the expectations based on the context of the situation. In addition, you can give him cues to let him know what you want.
When going on a jog, start your walk with a “right here” cue. That lets the dog know that reasonably good heel position with peripheral vision focus is your expectation of him.
When giving your dog free rein to go to the end of the leash for a potty break, release him with an “okay”.
If you want focused heeling, just snap on a treat bag or tell the dog that you are now actively working with a “right here” cue and then a reinforcement for eye contact. Eventually, I’d change the “right here” cue to “heel” so the dog can better differentiate between when he is to give eye contact and when peripheral vision is sufficient. For the meantime, though, context is sufficient. The first time you reinforce eye contact, the dog should know that focused heeling is now the game.
Dogs are extremely well-adapted when it comes to context and now that you’ve trained cues, changing expectations for walks can successfully change in a snap!
