Friday, May 9, 2014

Some Heeling

I am posting a video of Rundle heeling. At this moment in time, this is about how much heeling I am asking for in a typical session. Not very much at all. Heeling involves a lot of attention, focus and precision and I would rather take a shorter session with all these components than a longer session that starts to get sloppy.  I also break the heeling off lots to keep up the reinforcement and enthusiasm. You can see in one spot, I asked Rundle to "get in" and he thought maybe he didn't want to. So, instead of forcing the issue and perhaps adding some negative connotations to our heeling, I changed plans and asked him to go around the pole (do you see a theme with the pole in much of our training). This added enthusiasm and fun to the rest of the heeling. Yes, I will need to go back and work on our set-ups but that was not the point of today's training so I didn't force the issue.

I have been trying to add in a fast pace to our heeling but Rundle seems to think that means jump on me. So we have a bit of work to do on that. I also have not been asking for sits at stops. I guess that is because I don't really stop much when heeling. I stop to reward with a toy or cookie. Or I break off the heeling by sending Rundle around a pole, through a tunnel, or a weave through my legs. I guess one day I should start to add in formal halts but there just seems so much more to do before I start that. 


3 comments:

  1. very nice Kim, wonderful attention on the about turns, head up, loved it :)

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    1. Thanks, Jo! It seems like it has taken us forever to get this far. It is still such a work in progress. It will be a long time until we are ready for a full heeling pattern. Heeling is hard, darn it!!!!!

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  2. I know!!! at least you are further along then sit at the side and one step lol!

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