Dutch Shepherd Forum

I work with her, try to practice a minimum of 20 minutes a day, offer lots of praise, treats, toys, corrections.

And her most consistent command, as in works everytime without fail, is my son's version of night night...no practice, no praise, no treats or toys...but as soon as he says it, she off to his room and in her kennel. Shows me up everytime.

As good as it gets

Tim91118 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 2:13 pm It’s nice to see a proper competitive heel from a dog, but is it realistic for someone who is not competing ?

See, to me, I find more value in a focused heel than just competition. To me it’s more about the dog paying attention to the handler and not whatever else is going on around them. Which is immensely helpful, especially for problems I’ve heard asked about on this site. Reactiveness towards other dogs or strangers while walking being one of the most recent. It’s the dog putting its trust in you that if it pays attention to you, there’s nothing to worry about. Maybe there’s something up ahead the dog might find interesting, or maybe a squirrel runs out into traffic... your dog stays by your side because it’s watcing you not everything else. I do believe there is also time when the dog should be free to look around. For that you have your release command “free”

i think we should not talk about it in a way that makes it ether for comp or just family. I agree that the comp level training and attention of the dog is very important in day to day life as well. especially for this breed because of its reactivity. The more the dog is trained the more pleasurable it can be. so instead of thinking of that strick heal only for comp, think of it as a huge benefit for walking in town when that person who thinks every dog is a play mate for their little dog where for ours it may be dinner. so your dog will stay glued to your leg as that happy go lucky fluff ball walks uncontrollably by.

Which may well be what I'm doing wrong. We've not focused on an exact heel with her head up. In case you can't tell we had a terrible training session. I'm just not getting it. She is, I'm not. To the point I think the trainer is getting frustrated with me.

If the dog is in a true heel how does it work, accomplish the needed task? And how does the handler accomplish anything, like like supervising a child while walking with the dog? (You can see how frustrated I am. Sigh.)

ladyjubilee wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 3:32 pm Which may well be what I'm doing wrong. We've not focused on an exact heel with her head up. In case you can't tell we had a terrible training session. I'm just not getting it. She is, I'm not. To the point I think the trainer is getting frustrated with me.

If the dog is in a true heel how does it work, accomplish the needed task? And how does the handler accomplish anything, like like supervising a child while walking with the dog? (You can see how frustrated I am. Sigh.)

its training every day, and not trying and half doing it until you get frustrated and stop. you have to have the time to do it until something goes right, even a little. then you can stop if you have to get on to something else.

It also starts before you actually work on the heel. I did compete so I trained for at least an hour a day. but that training did help a ton when we were out and about. hiking, walkin in town, etc.

go watch some leerburg videos, watch them over and over.

we started with the look, tug in hand to get the dogs focus up on our face. then progressed to a few steps, then more , then more. with every small gain a huge tug party for the dog.

we also had leash in hand, short so the dog really could not go to far, not even three inches away. one stride, if done right, reward. So its not , walk 100 feet then see how the dog did, its walk one step.

when trained properly, the dog is part of your leg.

If you need to supervise a child while walking, say go to the carriage to see what the baby is doing. put the dog in a sit, or down. again, good training so the dog does not move or look away while you tend to a child.

what if you are with your child, and a fluffball comes by out of no where?? then what? fluffy is dinner.

if your dog can't stay while you need to tend to the child while you are in town, or someplace where fluffy can come out of nowhere, then either leave child at home. or do the training at home and dont take both out until you can have the dog stay firmly planted while you tend to the child

this is a link to leerburg heel videos. I would pay for some of them if you find the free videos are helpful.

https://leerburg.com/fsearch/results.php?terms=heel