"All Positive Monday 27" - Heel position

Been a while for an All-Positive Monday entry, but today I decided to try to build heel position with this approach.

What I did was click and treat (mark and reward) whenever Wally was in heel position. I gave no cues or anything of that nature. When he reached heel, he got the reward, even if he seemed as though he was going to go too far.

Being the food-monger that he is and of course the "click" is burned into his head, he immediately looked up for the treat. After that, he stayed in the position, aligning himself closer and closer each time, and looking up at me in the process.

The key on my end, other than the timing - which is a constant thing to look out for - is delivering the treat in a good spot. I don't want him to hop up, but I also want to make sure he's eating in heel position. In other words, I want him to be where the treat is delivered and that also to be heel position.

This paints the picture fully for him. I believe if I keep this up, he'll get the position down and he will be better able to maintain it on his own. With it being no cues from me and almost a "shaping on the move" exercise, I'm hoping those same shaping-esque principles 'click' (no pun intended) as well.

The eye contact might be a nice little side effect. The concept behind the phrase "feed the position" is that how and where the reward is actually taken and consumed by the dog also imparts information to the dog. The click explains the behavior, the delivery and consumption of the reward explains the location. Judging by past attempts to adhere to this makes it ring true for Wally it seems. Refining front happened with the help of "feed the position". The treat always came directly down and center from me. If he was off to the side or otherwise not aligned, I would not let go of the reward. In fact, it was out of his reach (and he already learned that raising up to get it made it go away completely so he keeps down on the ground).

The first run through shows promise and even after I stopped the training session and released him for some sniff/fun time, he continued walking in heel position. Very promising indeed.

Granted, in the interest of disclosure, Wally is not "completely green" in heeling. We have worked on this in various forms ("keep up"/"slow down" was the first way with heel being the correct spot - we just never "formally" named it "heel" or worked it until later). Still, we are far from masters at it, so this hopefully will continue to help us build the skill.

You Know, That Walking Beside Me For The Last Three Years? It's Called...

Yes, I just now made any kind of effort to teach the actual cue "Heel" (and, no, I don't know a good Spanish word for it, yet!).

You read that correctly. No, this doesn't mean I don't require Wally to walk at heel position. I just never made any sort of verbal or hand signal for it. I just expected him to do it, and taught it using the "be a tree" method, and marking and rewarding him for coming back into position on his own. He would also get marked and rewarded for maintaining position while we're on the move.

The reasoning is that at the time I had just learned about "default behaviors", a behavior the dog will choose first time, every time when presented with the situation. Using sit as the default behavior helped him master sitting before being let out or coming back in, further cementing the idea as a good one.

So I wanted to extend that to heeling. I wouldn't need any cues because it would just be the default, automatic behavior. "We're walking? I get in heel." That's what I wanted him to think. Nothing to cue because he's already doing what I would be telling him to do. When he would wander out of position, I usually just redirect and stop moving (which then had it's own default attached, coming back to my side), though I did use "keep up" for when he's lagging, and "slow down" for when he's going too far ahead, and he picked up on the meanings of these cues by mark/rewarding when he gets back into position.

For the longest, I didn't see the need for a "real" cue for heel. Staying in position is the default. If he gets distracted or something, I can use "keep up"/"slow down". Then for some reason, I just decided to start putting the cue while he's doing it and marking and rewarding (easy, since he's already doing it, I'm just telling him what it's called). When he wanders out of position, I would say "heel". He probably didn't know what it meant (or did he?) but since he always before just come to my side, he'd do it and get rewarded.

I don't know why I just got it in my head to do it, but...there it is.

I guess the real question is: "What's the cue for 'heel' in Spanish?"

Heel, Turn, Focus. Heel, Turn, Focus...

Tonight, it was working on heeling and turning as that's something he's struggled with lately (and in general). It's also a way to get the directions in during practical usage.

I'd call out the turn and then do it while having him walking at a normal pace in heel position. This seemed to go pretty well and he was enjoying it, but I noticed he turns left much worse than right.

Noted. So now that's one thing we can work on more.

The heeling itself went pretty well. No cue for it (don't really have a heel cue - just want it to be his default walking behavior) but just clicking and treating in position. I tried to click him with some frequency to keep him engaged and reinforced for the position. A couple times he messed up because he got so freaking excited and happy that he started walking too fast! So I just stopped and when he came back to position, we started up again and got a click and treat soon after if he stayed in position.

His excitement is a lot of his problem with heeling, but he loves training so much (and especially getting those bread balls!)

The turns weren't bad, aside from the aforementioned left turning troubles. I think that will come around with work.

The last thing we worked on is something else that's a problem for him - keeping focus/eye contact. He so nosy...er...I mean observant and curious that he just wants to look at what's going on around him. This is probably something I will want to devote a whole walk to, or perhaps no walk, just let him do his business and then just focus, focus, focus. One time, he did it really well, didn't even take eyes off of me. He got very rapid clicks and treats for that!

It's getting there. I just have to make myself work him more on it in the midst of the other things we are working on.