Obedience Tips, Tools and Tricks for Heeling

Obedience is really based on the relationship between you and your dog.  In this lesson I want to address some tips and tricks as well as tools that will help you with one of the more important things we face in obedience – Focused Heel.  Many of these principles can also be applied to other training issues, but let’s focus here on the heel.

Creating excitement and an energy of fun and reward will take you a long way to building a relationship with your dog and making that training fun for both of you.  I address some corrections and tools that will help you fairly correct your dog.  These tools can be used aversively, just like any others, so I stress the importance of watching the lesson, reading my instruction and following it to make them a help to training, not a hinderance.

The most important part of this online dog training lesson, and I’ll stress it a few times is to keep your dog engaged during and between the breaks.  I like to use a toy to do that.  The more you keep that engagement, the easier the learning process will be for you and your dog.

When corrections enter the training, some people become uncomfortable and that will make the dog uncomfortable.  In this lesson I show you how to go from correction to engagement and not make corrections personal.  This is a relatively simple lesson, but the principles in it carry through to the most advanced training you’ll do with your dog.

Also, this is a two part lesson.  In part two I address all these same issue with the e-collar.  That lesson will be up either next week or the week after.