Hi! I'm having a small issue with my lab when it comes to walking and the heel command. When I say heel he comes to my side as expected, but doesn't just walk beside me, he does it while staring at me expecting his treat which I can understand, he's performing a command. But if I give him the treat for doing the command, he then plods along and starts to pull. If I don't give him a treat he will continue to walk beside me but stares at me instead of where he's going. Eventually he gets bored and ignores the command and starts to pull ahead. Any help on fixing this would be great.
I'm sure someone with a lot more experience will be along shortly but I'll let you know why worked for us. I started using LOTS of treats at very short intervals and only did a short amount of heel work at a time. So, I'd say "Ella heel" in my chirpy voice as we took a step. I'd have a load of little teeny treats in my hand so, if Ella took a step with me she'd get a treat. Then, after another step or two she'd get another treat until we'd successfully walked a few metres. Then we'd stop, I'd give her a release cue and we'd repeat again later. As she started to get the hang of it, we'd increase the distance of the heel work and increase the interval between treats. I also began to keep the treats in my treat pouch rather than my hand so it was more of a reward and less of a lure. Now she's reasonably good at heel work so I can reward at the end of a heel work pattern of say, five minutes.
Oh, I forgot to mention that talking to, and encouraging your dog to stay close really helps as you want them to think that walking next to you is much better than any other alternative. So, even if you feel stupid, I found that if I said "Ella heel, yes, clever girl, you're walking with me, yay, good girl, stay close, this way, good, well done, let's keep going etc." she was much more likely to stay at heel and I could then reward for the good position.
I am wondering if your dog may be a little confused by what you want him to do. Just a thought to add into the mix! Are you teaching 1. A heel...dog walking close to you. 2. Do not pull. I ask because I tackle these things independently. My cue to walk close on a lead or off..is "walk" So I use the cue....dog walks a few paces nicely then I reward. So I am rewarding the behaviour of walking close to me. Then I extended the paces to 10 paces etc....I don't add a cue (or command in your case) until the dog understands that I want him to walk nicely beside me. Once I have this behaviour I then add the cue. Now the dog understands that "walk" ( or in your case "heel" ) means walk nicely beside me. So I can now use the cue from a standing position and Benson understands what I want. I also only treat the dog just behind my hip, I find this helps me with positioning. 2. Pulling..I take a different approach. If one of my dogs pulls, they just don't go anywhere! I stop, wait for them to get back in position, and the reward is we go forward.
There are quite a few things you can do to try to top this. Here are a few. Don't try them all at once You can use a marker (clicker or marker word) to mark when he's looking ahead. My two will still look up at me as we walk, but with less of that neck-cricking stare. Mixing up your pace and your direction could help. So, rather than just plodding in a straight line, make lots of 90 degree and 180 degree turns, in both directions. Change the terrain, so walking up and down kerbs and around posts, for example, may help him concentrate on where he's going. He'll have to stay focussed on you, so he can stay with you, but also watch what he's doing. Make sure he can't see the treat. If he can, then you're bribing him. So, once you have the position with the treat in your hand, you can start faking the treat in that hand. Then, when you mark, show him that hand is actually empty, and feed him from the other hand. Try rewarding him ahead, so the reward always comes in front. If he knows to expect it there, it may encourage him to look there. So tossing the treat or ball, for example. To be honest, this was advised to me and it didn't really work, because the dog still knew it was me that it was coming from, so would still focus on my hands. But, the fact it was advised makes me believe it may work for some dogs and may be worth a try. Alternatively, you could maybe have someone else throwing the treat over his head, if you have a helper.
Thanks for the help! I'll start some fresh training with him tonight and see how it goes over the next few weeks.
