Heelwork - A New Idea

I've spoken before about the fact I sometimes take my dogs with me when I go to work on my allotment.

I recently made an accidental discovery which might help you to get your dog to walk more precisely in the heel position.

You are quite possibly not as demanding of your dog as I am of mine. Once they've been taught something I expect them to do it perfectly every time. Tufter's heelwork, it has to be said, is not up to my normal high standards.

This is down to a number of things, but basically it all comes back to being my own fault. If you're pushing a wheelbarrow you don't have a spare hand to correct the dog and neither can you indulge in a hifty bit of footwork. Just recently I've been pushinhg a wheelbarrow to my allotment with Tufter walking alongside me in the heel position.

But he's been creeping forward so that instead of his head being level with my leg, it was more like his shoulder or maybe even his ribcage that was level with my leg. From there it's just a very short step to breaking from the heel position altogether - I was determined to correct that before it became any worse.

One morning a few weeks ago I was walking to the allotment with Tufter at heel as usual, but this time I was carrying a garden fork.

Tufter began to creep forward as had become his habit and without even consciously thinking about it I held the fork in such a way that the tines were just in front of his chest. He walks on my left and I'm right handed. I held the fork handle in my right hand and the shaft in my left. This meant I was able to be extremely precise as to where I held the fork head.

By tilting it back towards him slightly I was able to make him drop back behind the normal heel position, and conversely by moving it forward slightly I was able to make him walk further forward. Wherever I held the fork head he would walk so that his nose was just behind the tines.

Obviously you're not going to want to take a garden fork with you every time you take the dog for a walk (!), but there's no reason you can't adapt the principle to meet your needs.

It would work just as well with something like a light branch or stick. And if you could find something telescopic, like a magician's wand, or one of those fold up 'mini-sticks' you sometimes see blind people with, it would be light enough and small enough to put in your pocket while you weren't using it.

I'm not trying to suggest you should abandon whatever methods you currently use when teaching heelwork. Rather, I'm suggesting this is another technique you can add to your arsenal.

As soon as you find yourself having to train your second dog you'll discover that, just like people, they're all different. And what works for one will not necessarily work for another. So the more strings you have to your bow the more likely you are to be successful.

File this one away in your memory bank. Then next time you're having problems teaching off leash heelwork, if it looks as if it could be appropriate in the circumstances give it, or a suitable variation thereof, a try.

Recommended reading "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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