I was at a conference and this attendee had a shirt that said “heeling is healing” and it’s one of the truest things in life. A dog heeling next to you is like the sensation when you’re cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide, or when you get done house work outside in the heat, you’re sweaty and smell like grass and you crack a cold beer. Ahhh. Namaste.
If you read my post about tools, you can deduce that a few types were created for the sole purpose of getting a dog to walk better on a leash.
Why is heeling such a difficult command for a dog? I cannot answer that question without writing a formal dissertation so I am going to give a couple examples that hopefully resonate. We aren’t talking about a formal heel or fuse for the sake of this discussion. Just a nice, loose leash walk on a specific side of your choosing.
Has the dog ever been taught that pulling doesn’t get it what it wants?
If you ever let your dog pull you part of the way to the dog park and then let him off the leash to run around as a reward, you have reinforced the #@&% out of that behavior. The dog has learned that indeed pulling you around is EXACTLY how he gets what he wants. That’s the number one reason I believe that dogs are poor walkers. They actually think they are taking YOU on a walk, not the other way around. There has never been a communication system that told them the rule is if you walk nicely on a leash then you’ll be able to sniff around and enjoy the outdoors.
How’s your engagement with your dog?
If your dog doesn’t have a strong foundation where she knows that engaging with you will get her the things she wants, you are dead to her. Her senses are going crazy, she’s got smells to smell and things to look at and if she isn’t look at you in the slightest, how can she know where you are to walk alongside of you??
Do you have the same path you walk with your dog most days?
Dogs are exceptionally routine creatures and they learn to associate things together and create patterns very quickly. Anticipation can be a great thing when working advanced obedience or sport dogs, but it can be a real pain for pet owners. If your dog knows where they’re going, where the great smells are, which dog will bark over the fence at them, etc. you are really going on THEIR walk. They know that space so well and now you are going to be getting jerked around while they take you on crazed smelling spree.
At Magnus we address heeling the same way we start with any behavior, at the beginning. We teach your dog commands, engagement, confidence, and then heeling comes as part of that.