Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A Little Bit of Heeling

Once in a while, we try to video ourselves doing obedience. This allows us to check for little things that we may be doing wrong. For example, some people have a hard time walking a straight line or might unknowingly step into the dog when they stop. I recently had a friend take some video or me working with Tanner. He really is coming along quite nicely. I like his attention to me and he does a great job getting his rear out of the way on the left turns.



The things I see in here that need some work are his right turns and his sits. He tends to drop his head a little on the right turn and often goes a bit wide. This is easily fixed with a clicker and treats. He also tends to swing his butt out a bit when he sits. Right now, I have been ignoring it in favor of rewarding a quick sit. Soon, I will start to ask him to bring his butt in as we are stopping.

Things I need to work on are using my shoulders properly to cue turns and stops as well as cleaning up small pieces of my foot work. This is easily fixed with a clicker and chocolate ;)

7 comments:

Greyhounds CAN Sit said...

Lol, clicker and chocolate, I love it:) And I love Tanner's focus, I must see if Beryl will watch this. She usually does the pop up sit too. A sustained sit is not something she thinks necessary! Tanner is doing really well:)

whygreyhounds said...

Looks Great Tanner! I found doing hind-leg work with Rex (pivots on a brick or stool) really helped straighten him in sits and turns. Tanner has lovely attention to you...Great Job Guys! :-)

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! I'd be THRILLED if Becca heeled as well as Tanner. :)

Donna

Lisa Foxworthy Stine said...

Ha ha ha, that is fantastic. Coincidentally I had my trainer video Darby and I doing some heeling patterns on the same evening you posted this! I was about to send H an email to tell her I had something for a blog post and then looked at the blog and said "Dannnnnnggggg, she beat me to it!" It was weird that we both had video of heeling the same evening!

Lisa Foxworthy Stine said...

And I do mean FANTASTIC!!! He looks great!

Tarmar said...

Hey guys, thanks for the nice comments on my boy! I am trying something different with Tanner's training. I took a component approach in which I taught each piece separately, trained to fluency, then started putting stuff together. For example, he is 2.5 years old and I just now started adding the sit to the heel.

Also, like Whygreyhounds suggested, we have been doing lots of hind end awareness. So much so that I recently realized I needed to teach right turns, he has his left turns down pat. Look in the video and see if you can tell, as we turn left, he moves his rear and his front. I should video his side pass sometime!

It is so much fun having so many of the Tan-Man's siblings out there working as well. This was such a fantastic litter. I could have taken any of these pups home and be more than happy!

Lisa, please do work up a post with Darby's heeling. Would love to see it!

Michelle said...

Clicker and Chocolate, I love it!