Review:

In this class we will focus on some advanced topics in Freestyle Heelwork.  This week we will work on:

1.  Human and dog walking backwards in heel position.  This helps our dog get really attuned to our movement, and looks cool!

2.  Pivots, where the dog gains “rear-end awareness” and learns to swing their butt to maintain heel position with us.  This is great for dogs who “crab” (turn sideways during heel).

3.  Chaining multiple behaviors together.  This helps with impulse control, delay of gratification,  and teaches our dog to perform more work to get a reward (food or toy).

Luring a backwards heel
Just like in regular heeling, we want to reinforce the heel position with our dog on our left side, their shoulder even with our left pant seam.  Smoothly move your hand backwards, a little below your dogs mouth.  See if she back up to get the treat.  (see video below)

• Dog is on your left side.
• Hold a treat in your left hand.  Always feed from the hand closet to the dog!
• Make a fist, present the “seam” of your fingernails and palm to your dog a little bit below their mouth.  This helps prevent them from sitting as you move your hand backwards.
• Click for ANY backwards movement and then open your fist to provide the treat.  Try to click during the backwards movement rather than waiting for the dog to stop moving.  We want to reinforce the backwards movement, not the stopping.

Another way to teach a backup is to use a platform.  We will teach our dog to get their back feet on the platform.  The goal is for them to continue to walk backwards until they find the platform with their back legs.  See video:

Pivots are really useful to teach your dog rear-end awareness.  It helps them swing their backside into a nice heel position and helps prevent “crabbing”.  Start by getting your dog to put her front two feet onto a small platform.  An upside down food bowl works really well because we can use it to help with pivoting in the later steps.  This is a shaping exercise, similar to how we got our dogs to discover a platform in Level 1.  We click/treat any investigation of the pivot bowl.  We can “feed for position” to help our dog get one or two feet up on the bowl.  When they get two front feet on the bowl then we use “fast food” to build value for them.

Initially we teach our dog one single behavior (heel, spin, leg weave, around, etc) and then click/treat after each correct response.  Once our dog can reliably do the behaviors we can start chaining the behaviors together and click/treat after the chain.  An easy way to think about it is to use “Forward Chaining“.  In this technique we add new behaviors to the end of our chain and then click/treat after the last behavior in the chain.  Below is a diagram of how we can add new behaviors to a forward chain.

 

In the picture above we start by click/treating after each behavior.  Then we wait to click/treat until after the second behavior.  At this point Behavior 1 and Behavior 2 become a chain.  We can add a third behavior to the chain as follows:

So at this point we have chained the third behavior to our previous chain of two.  We click/treat after the third behavior.  We can continue to add new behaviors to the end and increase the number of behaviors in the chain.

Here is a video of a complete chain of four behaviors:  [Around & Leg Weave & Around & Spin]:

Here is how we build the chain:  I start with an Around, then I add Leg Weave.  Once  I have those two behaviors reliable and I can click/treat at the end I add the third behavior, another Around.  Once those three behaviors are reliably chained I add a Spin.  I add the new behavior to the end of the chain so the progression is as follows:

Around
Around + Leg Weave
Around + Leg Weave + Around
Around + Leg Weave + Around + Spin

Here is a video of the steps to get to the complete chain.  In this video I only show one repetition at each stage for demonstration purposes.  In reality you probably will want to use push-drop-stick or some systematic way to make sure you and your dog are good at a given step before going to the next step:

• Lure your dog onto a side-ways platform so that their back feet are on the platform.
• Put a treat on the floor in between your feet.  Your dog will likely step back and then look up at you after eating.  Click/treat As soon as they get both back feet on the platform.
• Take a very small step backwards, just enough for your dog to step with one or two feet off the platform towards you.
• Use push-drop-stick to very gradually increase the distance that your dog moves backwards.  See video below:

• See if you can reliably get your dog to put two front feet onto an upside down food bowl.  You can use any similar object, but a food bowl is good for upcoming steps in the process.
• If your dog is really reliable then you can try taking a few steps around the bowl.  Click/treat as soon as your dog moves about the bowl.
• Counterclockwise movement is the what we will be focusing on because we want our dog to move into us.   You can try a few clockwise movements too just to build fluency for your dog.  In the video below I move counterclockwise which will be our main focus:

• See if you can use forward chaining described in the review section above to build a chain of four behaviors.  You can use the chain I demonstrated in the review or build your own chain.
• Once you have a solid chain see if you can use a toy or some play as a reinforcer instead of food.

Have fun with the exercises and try to do a few two-minute sessions per day.  Please contact me at dogswitchdog@gmail.com if you have any questions.