Teaching adult dogs to heel -

Kash

Looking for other dog owners advice.

I have two female dogs - mother and daughter, both ladies of mixed heritage and approximately 80-85 lbs each. Given that the two of them combined way more than I do, walking them is difficult, particularly as they don't understand heel yet.

I am not concerned about them learning the command - I will take each dog out seperately until they understand it, and won't mind looking like a fool stopping and starting and changing direction every 5 seconds if that is what it takes - but my question is this: how long should the lesson last? I want to walk the dog for a minimum of 45 minutes, but should I demand that they 'heel' throughout that, or keep it to 10/15 minutes and let them go back to their normal pull your shoulder off style for the rest of the walk?

I'm hoping someone else has experience of this, and can offer some advice.

piperh

Firstly if at all possible i would suggest breaking the walks up into 15mins a time and make them walk to heel for the whole time otherwise you are giving out mixed signals.

Secondly i would recommend you get Halti gentle leaders which make the walk much more pleasant but make sure you introduce them slowly. These prevent pulling, i tried harnesses and for my dog it actually made the situation worse as it encouraged pulling. The trainer reckoned this was because of his working dog breeding.

snowy two

I agree with the other post definitely get haltis for them i got them for mine brillant tried all sorts of harnesses as well but just encouraged them to pull.

Carol555

Exactly the same experience here. Spent fortune on different harnesses and every time they were only turning upside down what we managed to learn so far. Halti helped us a lot to get from A to B.

Whispered

Haltis and anti pull harnesses is not really training your dog though, just controlling their ability to pull. They will work, but only when the halti or harness is on. I use a front connection harness myself and we're currently working on learning loose lead walking without it.

It's best to start with one dog, in your house, pop the dog onto the lead (I prefer to use a harness, because it's not good for them to have so much pressure on their neck). Get a bit of food and let the dog sniff it then throw it out of reach of the dog. Of course the dog will naturally run for it, but can't get to it because of the lead. Wait until the dog takes a step back towards you and loosens the lead himself, then immediately mark it (good boy, or yes, or if you use a clicker) and step to the food so the dog can get it. After a few repetitions the dog will learn that when there is pressure on the lead, they get nowhere. When you can throw the food and the dog doesn't lunge, you can move onto the next step.

In your hallway or long room (our house is small so has to be the hallway) start walking up and down, feeding the dog from your hand to keep him to heel. If you want to use a word like heel or something you can start using it now, but only when the dog is beside you.

The next step is to put some food at the end of the hallway, start at the other end and walk towards it (using your heel command) if the dog puts pressure on the lead just turn around and start again.

We've been doing this for a while now and have 2 dogs who walk very well in the house. :rolleyes: As soon as I figure out how to get them to do the same outside I'll let you know we have been told by the trainer to take it very slowly, so a 10 min walk using those methods and slowly increase it. The boys are very playful though so we are struggling with it outside when things get very interesting for them, but we're getting there.

For now we're using the anti pull harness when we're out walking then doing lead training too in much shorter bursts.

Kash

I have to agree with Whispered, I want to train my dog to heel when wearing any lead. As I have the time and (hopefully) the patience to teach them without the Halti, thats what I prefer. If it doesn't work - I can get one, but the dogs are smart and usually quick learners, so I'm quietly confident that it won't be necessary.

The 15 minute training intervals make sense - I work from home so could probably have 3-4 'lessons' a day.

Training them in the house also makes perfect sense - great tip, thank you! I can start inside, then migrate to the garden.

If I find any technique that works really well, I'll post it here.

tk123

We use a front attach harness and have done lots of work as well and he'll only really pull now if somebody is calling him and he really wants to see them lol! We used to use sens-ible/sens-ation ones but we use the premier easy one now because you can rotate it and attach at the back - this is really handy because we do a lot of training with our long line.

People always ask me what harness is it etc cos he's not pulling and are generally not impressed when I tell them we did heel work classes and put in a lot of time to train him not to pull - they want a quick fix solution because they "don't have time" which I don't get - if you're walking the dog every day then there's your chance do the training and bond with your dog!

ANYHOOS.. we started with throwing the treats ahead of us in the kitchen/garden/hall as Whispered as described, then we took it outside so I'd walk around the park doing it with him. Once he was getting good at tip toeing to the treat :rolleyes: lol I stopped throwing them ahead and walked as normal. As soon as he pulled I stopped and waited for him to stop, look around and come back to me and loosened the lead, then I'd click (clicker attached to lead so we always have it) reward and continue on. If I see something ahead that I know he's going to pull to I give him a LOOK!! command to get his attention back to me and treat him. If he's not getting it even with stopping I just give him a look command every few steps and reward him until he's staying close and asking for treats every few steps.

It just takes time and patience tbh.

piperh

Whispered wrote: »

Haltis and anti pull harnesses is not really training your dog though, just controlling their ability to pull. They will work, but only when the halti or harness is on. I use a front connection harness myself and we're currently working on learning loose lead walking without it.

It's best to start with one dog, in your house, pop the dog onto the lead (I prefer to use a harness, because it's not good for them to have so much pressure on their neck). Get a bit of food and let the dog sniff it then throw it out of reach of the dog. Of course the dog will naturally run for it, but can't get to it because of the lead. Wait until the dog takes a step back towards you and loosens the lead himself, then immediately mark it (good boy, or yes, or if you use a clicker) and step to the food so the dog can get it. After a few repetitions the dog will learn that when there is pressure on the lead, they get nowhere. When you can throw the food and the dog doesn't lunge, you can move onto the next step.

In your hallway or long room (our house is small so has to be the hallway) start walking up and down, feeding the dog from your hand to keep him to heel. If you want to use a word like heel or something you can start using it now, but only when the dog is beside you.

The next step is to put some food at the end of the hallway, start at the other end and walk towards it (using your heel command) if the dog puts pressure on the lead just turn around and start again.

We've been doing this for a while now and have 2 dogs who walk very well in the house. :rolleyes: As soon as I figure out how to get them to do the same outside I'll let you know we have been told by the trainer to take it very slowly, so a 10 min walk using those methods and slowly increase it. The boys are very playful though so we are struggling with it outside when things get very interesting for them, but we're getting there.

For now we're using the anti pull harness when we're out walking then doing lead training too in much shorter bursts.

I agree that the haltis alone will not train the dogs, but you can train the dogs using the halti, they will realise quite quickly that they get further walking at your side and its much more fun for them and as its less strain on your shoulder you are more relaxed while training and this transfers to the dog.

If you keep the lead short to begin with and every few steps use reward (be it food,praise or pat) while saying a command such as heel they realise walking beside you is a good thing, we did this around the house and garden for a couple of weeks, then slowly let the lead out still saying heel and treating when they walked at our side. If they pulled on the lead we stopped used the heel command and when they returned to our side we rewarded and continued. After around 2 wks we tried it around the town and admittedly what is normally a 40min walk turned into 1hr and 25mins but after a couple of days they got understood what i wanted and now walk loose lead all the way. I still use the command and reward method sometimes so they remember why its fun to walk by my side.

I think with any training patience is the key and adapting it to what works for you and your dog.

Kash

piperh wrote: »

I think with any training patience is the key and adapting it to what works for you and your dog.

I think you hit the nail on the head there!

We begin tomorrow - hopefully, this time next month I will have enviably well behaved dogs