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UTILITY HEELING Utility competition is comprised of so many exercises for the green dog to learn that heeling most often becomes compromised. It is not uncommon to see dogs in Utility A so stressed by all the things that they have to learn. Good heeling dogs in Novice and Open become laggers and wide heeling dogs in Utility A. It falls upon us as their handlers to bring some focus back to getting them to heel well again. Isn’t there enough points to loose with all those complicated exercises? One of the ways I have found to bring their better heeling back is through the use of treats. If you remember back to a few articles ago, we talked about leaning into the starts. This is very useful with a dog who watches you closely to start the heeling pattern. By putting a treat in your left hand and giving your dog a signal to start the heeling, you can take just 4-5 steps and immediately give the dog the treat as a reward for following the signal. Make sure that this treat is something soft and squishy that your dog can easily chomp and swallow so you can immediately start again, and not have to wait for the dog to chew. I like to use those really cheap turkey hot dogs that you buy in the grocery store for less than a dollar a package. Microwaving them will make them last a long time in a plastic container. As you start to see your dog jumping at the start, or even anticipating the beginning of heeling to get it’s reward, you can lengthen out the heeling pattern and start to treat at the turns. Again, keep a couple of treats in your left hand and when you make a right or left turn, put the treat by the dogs mouth and reward for a step past the turn. Ok, things are going well, and you are now incorporating random treating in the heeling pattern. Now, add that treat about ¾ of the way around the about turn. That will help tighten up those about turns and you can now start random ways that the dog will earn the treat. Sometimes it will be the start, sometimes the turn and sometimes the about turn. Your dog will never know, but you should start to see a dog who will start to forget about the stress and feel that working is fun again. |
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