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.
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