Retraining Heeling

A few weeks ago, on one of my obedience lists, several list members posted about having to retrain heeling, sometimes multiple times. Another member then posted asking if anyone would like to share how they train heeling.  She was probably expecting responses like "switched from clicker training to Bauman's short-leash training," or "switched from Yunck and Byron's method of treating when the dog is in the right position to clicker training," or "consulted with a dog whisperer and established a psychic connection with my dog."

 

What those answers have in common is that they all involve retraining the dog.  Thing is, the most useful retraining for me was all about retraining myself.

 

Most critically, I had to learn how to give better cues to my dogs on heeling.  Heeling is like agility.  You need a handling system with clear, consistent cues.  Each part of heeling -- halt/sit, halt/stand, left turn, right turn, about turn, fast, slow, normal, clockwise figure 8 circle, counterclockwise figure 8 circle, plus a few more moves if you do Rally -- is like an obstacle in agility.  The dog needs advance warning from you about what you want him to do.  The difference between agility and obedience is that the cues in obedience have to be subtle.  Before my retraining, all my dogs learned to heel reasonably well, in the same way that a beginning agility handler can get around a course flailing around, giving late commands and confusing directions, and manage to get a few titles. 

 

Camas, the elderly dog, and Maple the golden were my best heelers.  Alder the poodle was the worst.  I would leave him behind on about turns and right turns.  I had to be careful not to bump into him on the left turn.  Lack of attention?  He was often looking right at me when these things happened.  I KNEW I had a problem with my cues, because I could see echoes of my problems with Alder in Camas and Maple.  Camas and Maple were so much better than Alder because Camas and Maple both have quick reflexes.  They were simply better at adjusting on the fly than Alder. 

 

I’ve often lamented that I want a dog that doesn't make me a better trainer. Alder is the shining example of getting the dog you need, not the dog you want.  If I had only trained Camas and Maple, I probably would have lived with that brief lag on an about turn or the jerky left turns where the dog had to bounce a little backwards when I turned left without warning.  Alder is at the opposite end of the reflex spectrum.  He is like a classic 1950s big American car.  Lots of inertia, not very nimble.  He forced me to confront the problem.

 

For the longest time, I just couldn't figure out how to give better cues.  I tried following all the footwork diagrams in the heeling books, to no avail.  I have all the natural grace of a Great Dane puppy going down a flight of stairs.  The more I thought about my feet, the more likely I was to trip over them.  I have reflexes more like Alder than like Camas and Maple.

 

What made the greatest difference for me (and my dogs) was paying attention to where my head and shoulders were.  My feet followed more naturally if I led with my head.   My dogs (all big) weren’t watching my feet anyway; they were looking at my head and shoulders.  I mostly use the cues Diane Bauman discusses in the third edition of her book "Beyond Basic Obedience." For an About Turn, I glance briefly down at my feet just before I start the turn.  For the left, I look to the left and begin to put my left shoulder back just before the turn.  For the right, I look right and don't put a shoulder back, etc.  I can't completely forget my feet.  I have to remember not to swing my left foot out on the About and Right.  (I can often be heard muttering to myself, "Keep your feet under your waist, you dope.")  I have to try to not take a step to the left, into my dog, on the halt. 

 

There WAS dog retraining involved. After you teach yourself a system of cues; you have to teach the cues to the dog.  Which brings me to the next aspect of retraining myself. I had to learn, really learn, to teach an exercise in parts.  It is hard, really hard, to resist the temptation to always make it through the entire exercise every training session. You don't teach the cue for an about-turn by going through an entire heeling pattern, correcting for a wrong response to a cue you haven't taught the dog, and then continuing on to a slow, correcting a wrong response, continuing on to a right turn, etc.   You devote a part of a training session to about-turns.  You don't put the parts of a heeling pattern together until you and the dog can do them separately.

 

  For example, right now, I'm working on the Utility signal exercise with Alder and Maple.  Alder is having some difficulty figuring out when he should do a halt/sit and when he should do a halt/stand.  Maple sometimes slips up, too. 

Old training self:  Heel dog.  Halt with stand signal.  Dog sits. Give stand signal again, with verbal command.  Dog stands.  Give Stay signal. Walk away.  Continue signal exercise.

New and improved training self:  Heel dog.  Halt with stand signal. Dog sits. I might not have planned on a training session about halt/stand, but halt/stand and halt/sit immediately become the focus.  I work on halt/stands and halt/sits until dog is recognizing the difference.  If dog still seems confused, I turn my focus to whether I am the problem.  

 

Which brings me to yet another aspect of retraining myself.  The longer I train, the slower I become to blame a problem on the dog.  I am acutely aware that sometimes my signals and cues are confusing.  My timing is sometimes too slow.  The way I give a signal may drift and change over time.  Some of my signals are too similar to one another.  Some of my commands may sound too similar to the dog.  If both my dogs start showing the same incorrect response to a command, signal, or cue, that's a clear signal to me that *I* may be the problem.  But, even if it's only one dog showing confusion, I'm a lot less quick to blame the dog than I used to be.

 

I'm constantly evolving as a trainer.

Goals for 2013

Okay, deep breath.  Time to put those 2013 plans in writing.  In one year, will I look back at these resolutions with a sense of accomplishment? 

FOR ALDER, the goofy standard poodle boy:

I’d like to put a UD on Alder.  I’d like to set a timeline for that UD.  After our nearly 2-year trek through Open, I’ve learned that no title is guaranteed and timelines are a recipe for disappointment. 

The dilemma is that, if dates are not set, it’s too easy to dither and procrastinate (on both training and showing).  In the meantime, while you’re chanting to yourself that “It’s not a race,” or the ever-popular “Don’t show until you’re 95% certain of a Q,” the clock never stops ticking on the dog’s age.  Alder is 6.5 years now.  He’s never been the world’s most athletic dog.  Strangely, the past few months, he’s shown more stamina, jumping ability, and enthusiasm than I’ve seen from him through most of his life.  Who knows how long that will last?  With Alder, my resolution is to TRAIN and TRY.  He may not get that UD if we try, but he sure won’t get it if we don’t try.

I live in a area where the show season runs from mid-April to the first week of October, with the bulk of the shows in April and May.  (I could greatly expand the show season if I wanted to drive across the mountains to western Washington and Oregon, but I’m not crazy about driving across snowy mountain passes in winter and I’m a real chicken about driving in urban areas.) 

Effectively, given Alder’s age and the realities of the show calendar, his first appearance in Utility will be in April and I will probably be submitting my entry for a second show before I’ve shown him in a first show.  (Yikes!  The first show is only 14 weeks away.)

I learned, the hard way, in Open that, if Alder NQed an exercise on the first day of a weekend show, he would NQ that same exercise on the second day.  Trying to fix a problem overnight never worked for me and usually made it worse. 

So, until Alder gets a first leg in Utility, I am resolved to show him in Utility on only the first day of a show.  On the second day, I may skip the show completely or show him in Graduate Open. After he gets a first leg (and I am going to think positively that he WILL get a first leg.  Maybe.), then I will reassess the one-day-a-weekend rule.

 

FOR MAPLE, the Golden Retriever girl

Maple is 3.5 years old now.  She is my first real OTCH prospect.  She is amazing to train.  She learns so fast and has such fast reflexes, she covers for my klutzy footwork in heeling. But, as in a Greek tragedy, she has a fatal flaw: she hates riding in a vehicle and does not like being away from home, possibly because she knows she will have to get back in the hated vehicle to get back home. She has a CD, but her heeling in the ring is worse than Alder’s, and Alder’s klutz index rivals mine.  Maple’s Novice scores for her title were in the high 180s, a long way from OTCH level.  Alder’s were in the low 190s.  His heeling improved through our long Open career and he would probably score in the mid-190s in Novice now.  After I got Maple’s CD, I showed her a couple more times in Novice and in Rally Excellent and Advanced.  Her heeling got worse. 

Mary Jane McCall, a local trainer from whom I took a few private lessons, suggested I go ahead and show in Open, on the theory that if Maple gets to do some retrieving and other more active exercises, her attitude might improve.  So, that is my plan.  She knows the Open exercises and most of the Utility exercises.  We will plunge ahead, starting with Open and Graduate Open and not worry about scores.  After she finishes her CDX, we will go directly to Utility.  I will continue to work on her vehicle issues.  I am determined to find a way to bring the dog I have in the yard to the show environment.

Last year, I also tried to address her anxiety about traveling by doing hunt training with her.  I may have said this before (but I still marvel at it): Obedience is all about finding a way to motivate the dog through some intensely tedious, nit-picky activities, like straight fronts, but in hunt training, the reward is built into the activity.  Maple would walk across hot coals for the chance to leap into icy water for a dead, smelly duck.  Hunt trainers virtually never use treats or play or tugging or any of that stuff obedience trainers obsess over.  Hunt training usually involves the type of negative reinforcement that would have an obedience dog wanting to run away from home.  Yet, if you want to see a bunch of insanely motivated, excited dogs, go to a hunt test.  Maple still hates getting into a vehicle, but she totally forgets all her travel worries when she’s on the line waiting for a duck to be thrown.

Maple has a couple of her Junior Hunter legs (the Hunt test equivalent of Novice).  A natural retriever can generally get a JH on instinct alone. Maple sure didn’t get much help from me.  She was born knowing more about that stuff than I think I’ve learned.  The next level (Senior Hunter) requires some actual training to direct the dog to a “blind,” which is a retrieve in which the dog does not know where the bird has fallen.  We have been working on handling (i.e., teaching the dog to take directions via signals and a whistle).  My goal for her is to wrap up the JH and I think she is perfectly capable of finishing her SH next year, if she can overcome her handicap of a novice hunt trainer. I think we might be ready to enter the next level (Master’s) by fall, but I’m still too much of a greenhorn to know whether that’s doable.

BOTH DOGS

I have a few general training resolves that apply to both dogs:

·        Make time to play during training, especially when the exercise is difficult.  Alder, the poodle, especially responds to playing.

·        Work on the things we need to work on, not the things that make me feel good because the dog already knows them.

·        When it doubt, simplify.

·        Make the effort to take the dogs into town and train in different environments.

·        When training with a group, TRAIN, don’t test. 

Good luck to all with their training goals for 2013. 

How did those 2012 training resolutions work out for you?

I highly recommend making New Year’s training resolutions and putting them in writing, because it is so entertaining to read them one year later.  In a separate post, I’ll make my resolutions for 2013.  This post is a reflection on last year’s resolutions and results.

I put my 2012 resolutions on this blog a year ago, making them very easy for me to go back to.

For Alder:

My major resolutions for Alder were fairly simple: Get successfully through the long sit and get that last CDX leg.  We finally did it last spring, although it did take 2 NQs (both from going down on the long sit) before the 3^rd Q.  I had also resolved that, if he did it, I would never, ever, ever show him in Open again. I have not changed my mind about that.  I had thought I might work on adding Rally RAE legs while teaching Utility.  I showed him at least once in Rally last spring CDX and he added another RAE leg (maybe two; I don’t remember), but quickly decided that

1)      Alder, with his poor fine muscle control and slooowww reaction time is ill-suited for the herky-jerky nature of Rally.  He Qs, but his scores usually aren’t great.

2)      More importantly, after I made the decision to go ahead and take the plunge into Utility training with him, I decided I didn’t want to use any amount of his (somewhat limited) mental capacity on anything other than Utility.

Since starting the Utility training with Alder, there have been times (MANY, many times) I’ve had my doubts that we were getting anywhere, but, amazingly, he’s now coming along fairly well.  I think I’ll be ready to enter him in Utility this spring.  Amazing. 

For Maple:

Boy, did 2012 veer abruptly from the plans I had a year ago for Maple.  Back then, I was most concerned about her high anxiety and stress at trials. (Still am, and still struggling with that issue.)  I continued to show her in Novice in spring, instead of Open because I didn’t want to be showing two dogs in Open and because I wanted to work on bringing her scores up in Novice.  She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to an OTCH prospect, yet her Novice scores were lower than Alder’s.  She was getting high 180s and Alder ended his Novice career with low 190s.  But Maple HATES riding in a vehicle and she doesn’t like being away from home.  I tried concentrating on smiling at her in the ring, even talking happily to her during heeling in one Novice run.  (I expected an NQ, but the judge must have been hard of hearing.) I tried Rally, thinking the talking would help.  It didn’t.  My dog, who is so wonderful in the yard at home, will not even make eye contact at a trial.  I tried being a firmer disciplinarian in practice away from home, being more demanding about her keeping eye contact.  Things in the ring got worse, with scores in the low to mid-180s. 

I had gotten serious about agility training with Maple last winter.  I subscribed to Clean Run, decided on a handling system, and resolved to work on a new agility skill once a week.  I was also hoping that maybe agility, with all its (possibly) stress-releasing movement would help Maple’s anxiety at trials.  Maple went along with the agility lessons.  Jumping isn’t her favorite activity, but she would do it because I wanted her to, and treats were involved.

All that fooling around with agility changed when I joined the Spokane Bird Dog Association and went to their spring training day.  I had been, sporadically, throwing marks (bumpers) for Maple with some vague idea about hunt tests one of these days.  The spring training day opened my eyes to how much Maple LOVED hunt training.  I bought hunt training DVDs and more equipment (lots and lots of equipment…).  I started making the long drive to training grounds on the weekend.  (Extreme downside of hunt training: You can’t do it in a small yard or indoors.  You need lots of space, water, and different cover.) In fall, I took several private lessons.  I initially tried keeping up with the training of all three activities: obedience, agility, and hunting.  With a full-time job, the agility went down the tubes fast.  There are only so many hours in a day.

So, Maple has ended the year with a couple of her JH (AKC Junior Hunter) legs and an SR (NAHRA Started Retriever) leg.  We took her on a pheasant hunt this fall and George and I have tromped through several Saturdays of upland bird hunting with both Alder and Maple.

In my resolutions for 2012, hunt tests and hunting were not even remotely on the horizon.  Now, I love it and it consumes as much or more of my training time as obedience.

You just never know what a year will bring.