Walking to heal

tango

Walking to heel..how many of you have managed this with your dog ? I am struggling,just wanted some advice really ...

dmg24

Do you mean walking to heel? I thought it was going to be a thread about walking to improve health!

tango

dmg24 wrote: »

Do you mean walking to heel? I thought it was going to be a thread about walking to improve health!

....changed

Sagz_2

Ah the beauty of owning Lurchers - all mine have naturally walked to heel

This is the method I used for my non-lurchers:
http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/az/w/walkingonalead/default.aspx

blue_monkey_2

I am currently trying to train my pup to walk to heel, and I have one that does not but we are going back to basics with our trainer

It is the hardest thing I find to do and I am praying I am successful with our new dog. I use a halti on the older dog because otherwise she rips my arms off. What is harder is that she is not a dog that is food nor toy motivated so the training just seems impossible sometimes - she just wants to get round and back as quick as possible and calling her to get her attention is just a waste of time too - she seems very select with her hearing when out for a walk.

soupdragon10

Have you tried training at the end of a good hard run? Our dogs were so full of energy when they were young that I found having a good exercise session so they had burnt off a lot of excess energy really worked.

Always took them for a good run before going to training classes to.

Have you tried cooked liver as a treat? I found that one dog who didn't like normal 'doggy' treats did respond to bits of cooked liver which I used exclusively for training.

blue_monkey_2

soupdragon10 wrote: »

Have you tried training at the end of a good hard run? Our dogs were so full of energy when they were young that I found having a good exercise session so they had burnt off a lot of excess energy really worked.

Always took them for a good run before going to training classes to.

Have you tried cooked liver as a treat? I found that one dog who didn't like normal 'doggy' treats did respond to bits of cooked liver which I used exclusively for training.

I can't let her off for a run where we are as there are too many hares this time of year - it's a good 40 minutes round trip to get to the place I go and with 2 dogs to train (at the moment), I just cannot do it.

I went to bed thinking about this last night and we have an hour walk with friends in the morning but I think I am going to stop walking with others for a few weeks and go up the field for 3 half an hour bursts and try and crack this on the head. i cannot see the point in a training walk and then letting her walk whatever way she feels for an hour - it's counter productive surely? So I am going to walk the pup in the morning with my friend and then come back and walk the older dog on her own. She is not going to like it but it's tough really!!

tango

blue_monkey wrote: »

I can't let her off for a run where we are as there are too many hares this time of year - it's a good 40 minutes round trip to get to the place I go and with 2 dogs to train (at the moment), I just cannot do it.

I went to bed thinking about this last night and we have an hour walk with friends in the morning but I think I am going to stop walking with others for a few weeks and go up the field for 3 half an hour bursts and try and crack this on the head. i cannot see the point in a training walk and then letting her walk whatever way she feels for an hour - it's counter productive surely? So I am going to walk the pup in the morning with my friend and then come back and walk the older dog on her own. She is not going to like it but it's tough really!!

It is hard when you walk with others and have to train a puppy,I have taken to walking on my own . A new day today,thanks for your replies . I think I will start from scratch again ,in the garden. She is a Pointer so I am going to have my work cut out !. Good luck

dizziblonde

I try to insist that on the short lead he walks to heel, when I get to somewhere he can have a bit more a mooch around, I make a point of swapping to an extending one so he can see that things are different there (I just don't like holding the extending one on short lead walks as well to be honest). He's kind of getting the hint 70% of the time, much better after I've worn him out on the local fields on the way home (looks like a model citizen now walking past mister grumpypants dog hater's house - hah hah) and it's not a perfect heel but we're making progress.

WeirdoMagnet

I thought I would never get our hard pulling JRT to walk to heel, let alone a loose lead! I tried lots of different methods, including the stop/start and turnaround but they just didn't work. I taught her using clicker training and also using a Mekuti Balance Harness.

I used to let her run as she wished on the flexi lead or off lead, then as she'd used up some of her beans pop her back on the lead and do a bit of training - setting your dog up to succeed is much easier, less frustrating and more effective!

Once your dog knows the commmand, then you can steadily up the criteria by asking for a loose lead at different points in the walk, gradually working towards the hardest - leaving the house when he is full of energy and joy at going for a walk!

blue_monkey_2

I've been doing 90 minutes heel work today 2 x half an hour with big dog and 30 minutes with pup (inc recall with her). I find it really tiring and so do the dogs but big dog CAN do it. When she wants to though.

What do you do abut sniffing though, do you let them sniff or not?