Clean Run Magazine - May 2007 - 37

Square Heeling Put up an ex-pen and practice heeling around the pen. The pup will be next to the pen and you are on the outside. Practice on both your right and left sides. Stay quite close to the pen, especially at the corners. This is where you can practice having your pup swing into position as you square up on each corner. Reward every couple steps as you get started. You can also lengthen your pen into a rectangle, or you can set up some other kind of barrier to practice bending around as shown in the diagram on the right. Put up an ex-pen and practice heeling around it. Your pup must swing into position as you square up on each corner. Walking on Leash Sweep’s manners on leash are quite nice as long as there are no major distractions. We have noticed the places here on our property where Sweep wants to move away from our side and that is where we go to practice. Sweep knows when he is headed to the field for a walk. So we go there often when we are not going to go for a walk. We practice for 5 minutes rewarding him many times for being on a loose leash, and within 12" of our leg. Then we go do something else and do not go for a walk at that moment. If we absolutely, positively must go somewhere with him when he is too distracted to pay attention and stay on a loose leash, and he is acting like a fish on a line, then we make a harness out of his leash as shown in the photos. Recalls Each day your pup should be earning a portion of his daily food allotment for coming when you call. When practicing around the house by yourself, if you can’t get your pup to leave you, toss out a piece of kibble (reset cookie). While the pup is running to find it, run somewhere new and call your pup. If you are not getting an almost 80% response around the house, then you need to go back to having your pup on leash, without distractions, and concentrate for a week on training this behavior hundreds of times as your primary focus. If you are getting 100% response around the house you need to raise the bar and add some small distractions. Add only distractions that you can control. Have someone make silly noises or put one of your other dogs in a pen in the same room with some treats or a bone. If this level of distraction is not a problem then have someone wave a bag of cookies around until you call. If this is too much, ask the helper to reduce the level of distraction just before you call your dog. There are hundreds of different distractions around which you can train recalls. Practice on leash in every distracting environment you can find, and move farther from the distraction if you get no response. Feed multiple cookies, and then release your pup at the end of each recall. Now is also the time to sign up for a local puppy class to be able to expose your dog to other dogs and people and environments as a good distraction. Finding a class that uses clickers would be an added bonus, but would not be an absolute requirement. Look for a class with a qualified instructor who keeps control of the class using food and positive methods, and gives you a forum to practice your skills. Have fun with your pup this month! Generally if we do not have his attention we leave the scene and start giving him a treat for each step he takes with us, and then try to move back into the distracting environment while keeping his attention the entire way. If you let your pup drag you somewhere and try to get attention after the fact, you are not helping yourself or the pup. Don’t expect your pup’s behavior to change until you change what you are doing to earn his attention. When practicing walking on leash I reward like this. Say Close, take 3 steps forward, mark and treat while moving. Don’t stop moving while marking and treating; next take 4 steps, mark/treat, then 5 steps, mark/treat; 6 steps, mark/treat; 7, 8, 9 steps, and so on. If Sweep hits the end of the leash at 9 steps, I stop and wait for him to come back to my side; then he must walk at least 3 steps with me before he gets another mark/treat. These 3 steps with me are well taught and are his baseline for heeling. I rarely go below that to reward, unless he is extremely distracted. Remember: Don’t expect to have the skills when you actually need them unless you practice them before you need them! May 07 | Clean Run D Nancy Gyes and her husband Jim Basic run Power Paws Agility in San Jose, California. She is the AKC World Team Coach for 2006 and has been on the AKC World Team seven times, four years with Scud and three with Riot. Nancy and Riot finished 1st in 2002 and 2nd in 2001 in Individual Agility classes at Worlds. Nancy also won the USDAA Nationals four years in a row, 1998 to 2001, with three different dogs, Scud, Riot, and Wicked. In 2001 and 2002, Nancy and Riot were the 24" jump height AKC National Champions. Scud retired in 2001 after winning the USDAA Veterans Championship. Contact Nancy at www.powerpawsagility.com, where you can also view other articles and videos. 37
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Clean Run Magazine - May 2007

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