Finding the Joy in Heel Work -
Games of Arousal
After loosing our joy and focus in heel work, I decided to take the summer to try and find how to make heeling more fun for both myself and my young Border Collie, Myst. My goal was to create a new habit that whenever Myst was asked to heel she would only know one way - focused, happy, and in the correct heel position.
My journey for this new challenge began in May 2015. I learned about the beautiful FCI heel work of Kamal Fernandez from the UK. While FCI heeling is quite different from AKC heeling, what I found to be so beneficial was to watch Kamal training many of his dogs integrating play with tugging and favorite toys into his heel work training. Kamal always stressed taking progression of heel work perfection slowly. He believed in not only building a strong foundation in correct head and body position but also great joy for heeling.
I also signed up again for Susan Garrett's new Recallers class in July. Although I had taken 2 previous recallers classes, I always enjoy watching Susan's videos of how she works through challenges with her dogs through the use of games. I am always reminded of areas I need to work on such as the "call once" game and was looking forward to exploring how I might use some of these games that Myst so enjoyed to integrate into our new heel work training.
If games are used and introduced correctly, we as trainers can learn a great deal about our dogs such as:
Games can easily push our dogs into arousal. Through the use of games they can be taught that they can focus and control this arousal when performing. By practicing at home and outside the ring, dogs can learn how to maintain that same joy and focus with their partner in a show in the ring.
The video below was taken after working with Myst for 3 months this summer. The very warm summer days add another challenge to training. Training might have to be done very early in the morning with very short sessions. Part of my plan was
We spent a great deal of time in northern Arizona -Flagstaff. Some days we just went hiking with friends; other days we would train in a lovely shaded park and then go on a short run/walk in the forest. And we added weekly herding. Herding has been wonderful in teaching Myst so many things such as patience, not always defaulting to running, and working with a partner to get her reinforcement.
Today at the time of this writing we are 3 months from starting this journey. I am very happy at our progress so far especially after looking back at our heel work training in May. Our heeling is not perfect.. but it has come a long way in being happy, joyful and focused. We started by:
Some of the games you will see in the first video include:
NEW: BECKETT'S HEELWORK age 15 months: Beckett was introduced to the pivot platform when he was very young and he loves doing his pivot work. Laura also uses the pivot platform to start heel work since it puts the dog in the correct heel position and helps them to learn to to stay at that position. I start his warm-up on the pivot dish; progress to pivoting at my side off the dish and now we are starting Laura's Heeling Grids where the dog learns progressively longer heeling without reward but never knowing when the reward will come.
My journey for this new challenge began in May 2015. I learned about the beautiful FCI heel work of Kamal Fernandez from the UK. While FCI heeling is quite different from AKC heeling, what I found to be so beneficial was to watch Kamal training many of his dogs integrating play with tugging and favorite toys into his heel work training. Kamal always stressed taking progression of heel work perfection slowly. He believed in not only building a strong foundation in correct head and body position but also great joy for heeling.
I also signed up again for Susan Garrett's new Recallers class in July. Although I had taken 2 previous recallers classes, I always enjoy watching Susan's videos of how she works through challenges with her dogs through the use of games. I am always reminded of areas I need to work on such as the "call once" game and was looking forward to exploring how I might use some of these games that Myst so enjoyed to integrate into our new heel work training.
If games are used and introduced correctly, we as trainers can learn a great deal about our dogs such as:
- When our dog is under aroused that they can be easily be distracted;
- When our dogs are over aroused they are unable to focus on what we are training;
- How to find the perfect arousal zone for the performance we are striving for in our sport.
Games can easily push our dogs into arousal. Through the use of games they can be taught that they can focus and control this arousal when performing. By practicing at home and outside the ring, dogs can learn how to maintain that same joy and focus with their partner in a show in the ring.
The video below was taken after working with Myst for 3 months this summer. The very warm summer days add another challenge to training. Training might have to be done very early in the morning with very short sessions. Part of my plan was
- to keep our obedience training as positive and happy as possible which meant not too many days and hours of training;
- adding times where Myst could be a dog and just run and do whatever she liked and;
- adding a new sport totally different from obedience.
We spent a great deal of time in northern Arizona -Flagstaff. Some days we just went hiking with friends; other days we would train in a lovely shaded park and then go on a short run/walk in the forest. And we added weekly herding. Herding has been wonderful in teaching Myst so many things such as patience, not always defaulting to running, and working with a partner to get her reinforcement.
Today at the time of this writing we are 3 months from starting this journey. I am very happy at our progress so far especially after looking back at our heel work training in May. Our heeling is not perfect.. but it has come a long way in being happy, joyful and focused. We started by:
- Using a lot of tugging and ball retrieval. When Myst was happy and engaged, I would throw in a few heeling steps as you will see in one of the videos.
- We did a lot of this play > work > play using toys and high value food for Myst's reinforcement.
- The times I asked her for her heel work increased very slowly. We still do not go into the ring as with a class and do formal heeling.. but as you will see in the video, Myst's focus and joy of the heel work is quite good.
- While I am concerned about faults such as pacing, lagging, forging, crabbing, I try to always keep those faults in mind and reward for correct heel work position.
Some of the games you will see in the first video include:
- Crate games
- 1 > 2 > 3 game
- Collar grab game for arousal
- Motivational hand touches
- Continually creating value for reinforcement zone - which is our READY position for all obedience work
- WOW game
- Its Yer Choice
- Cik & Cap
- Targeting on plank for agility contacts
NEW: BECKETT'S HEELWORK age 15 months: Beckett was introduced to the pivot platform when he was very young and he loves doing his pivot work. Laura also uses the pivot platform to start heel work since it puts the dog in the correct heel position and helps them to learn to to stay at that position. I start his warm-up on the pivot dish; progress to pivoting at my side off the dish and now we are starting Laura's Heeling Grids where the dog learns progressively longer heeling without reward but never knowing when the reward will come.