We finally found an awesome competition obedience instructor and had our first private today. Sophie did amazing I was so proud of her. I have only dabbled in heeling before this since we were getting ready for the breed ring and doing nosework. So she did really well and was pretty darn cute
Wow! I loved the video! My Havanese was next to me when I watched it and she loved your voice. She actually looked up with interest. :laugh2: She heels great!
I love that she is so focused on you. When I trained my corgi, Foxy, to heal, we never used treats. I'm going to have to try the treat method with Willow to see if she'll pay more attention to me!
My problem with Willow and using treats is that she knows when I don't have a treat. She will do just about anything if she knows I have one in my hand but if not, she decides whether to do it or not. :frusty:
There is timing involved with using treats for training. This was Sophie's very first heeling, so it's appropriate that Deedee was "luring" her with food in her hand. Very soon you want to move to hand in heel position, with no cookie, and cookies avaiable in your other hand, so you can stop and reward even a couple of steps of good heeling. After that you go to variable reinforcement, where you give the rewards at varying intervals. Later, you put the cookies somewhere in the environment, but not on your person. You do a bit of work, break it off, tell the dog how wonderful they are, and run with them to the food, where you give them a number of cookies, one at a time, all the while telling them how wonderful they are.
While you DO have to eventually fade the rewards, especially if your goal is competition, i see most people trying to fade the rewards MUCH too quickly on behaviors that are not fully learned and proofed. (Just because your dog can do it in the kitchen doesn't mean he can do it in a parking lot, or the food aisle at Petco! :laugh A behavior has to be solid in ALL settings before you even think of asking for it without food REWARDS (not luring).
Karen, thank you for these tips. I'm new to training with treats. I was taught obedience the old school method with a leash, lots of praise and pets, and leash corrections. It's hard for me to know what to do when I don't get the results I want. What you suggest makes perfect sense.
And the cool thing is, with reward based training, you can get beautiful heeling without EVER putting a leash in the dog. (Well, in the end, you do need to practice with the leash, just so they understand thatit's the same thing). Pixel is 8 moths old, heels beautifully, and has yet to wear a leash in training.
For anyone who wants to learn more about positive based methods for competition obedience, and doesn't have a local, positive trainer to work with, I strongly advise at least signing up for Denise Fenzi's free blogs. Better yet, take some classes on line at Fenzi Dog Sport Academy.
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