Front Left

Here is a video clip of Reagan working on fronts. I am making her commit to a position by sitting. She still seems to be stuck on moving her rear end and correcting her position too much. When she does finally stand or sit straight in front of me, I click and treat several times in an attempt to convince her that its the position I want and not really the movement. She is so much fun to work with. Reagan is such a good little worker.

Next, Reagan is working on left turns in heeling. Kathryn (trainer) has me working on left turns slowly and exaggerated so Reagan is encouraged to move her rear end to stay in line.

My goal is to have Reagan ready to compete in Novice obedience at the Hound obedience trial September 18th. The trial is limited to dog breeds in the hound group so it should be a small, quiet trial to start at.

Clockwork

Here is another doodle for training fronts. You click and treat when the dog is positioned straight in front of you. Ideally, you spit out treats, but in this clip I am feeding from my hand because it was something I did not want in my mouth. :-P You then pivot as if you are standing on a clock face. Starting at 12:00, you then pivot to 2:00 or to 10:00. You click and treat when the dog moves over (especially the rear end) and regains a straight front position.

I thought Reagan was especially cute at the end when she starts to wag her tail when it became clear to her what was right. I have had an unexpected consequence though. Reagan has since then started to think I was rewarding her for swinging her rear end back and forth, so she started to offer lots of back and forth moving. I am now rewarding her for moving into a still, straight, and front position and she is getting the idea.

Get Close

On Sunday, Reagan and I attended a small, local seminar with Kathryn Willis. Kathryn has been training and competing in Dog Obedience for 15 years. Her Golden Retrievers have been nationally ranked for the last five years and have qualified for five National Obedience Invitationals. Kathryn has earned 3 Obedience Trial Championships, a perfect score of 200, over 50 High in Trials, and over 50 High Combined awards..... and best of all, Kathryn uses clicker training.

The seminar focused mostly on teaching the dog that he/she has a rear end, how to move the rear end, and where the rear end should be (something Riley, pictured above, needs a lot of help with). The difference between a nice obedience performance and a great obedience performance often comes down to straight fronts and finishes and a good heel position. With 4 legs, its easy to forget where the rear is and to let it drift off to the side. Kathryn taught us several "doodles" to help explain the rear end to the dog.

The first "doodle" (shown below) is teaching the dog to move into heel position or "get close" (dog is parallel to handler's left side). I have always been in a bad habit of asking my greyhound to sit and then positioning myself parallel to my dog (except with Katie, somehow I managed to explain to her how to move her rear end). With finishes (dog returns to heel position and sits next to the handler at the end of each exercise), it was always hit or miss. I would get credit for my dog's effort at finishing, but would lose points for the sit not being parallel or straight.

This is not the most interesting video clip, but I have to say I was quite thrilled to see how just twisting my hand with a treat and stepping back with my left foot encouraged my dog to move her rear into a more parallel position. You start by clicking and treating just a small side step, but eventually require a move into correct heel position.

Heeling

The obedience classes I attended with Jes more than 10 years ago used lots of collar corrections or quick jerks on the leash. I was never comfortable with this approach and Jes clearly did not like it either.

Heeling is an exercise where the dog matches the handler's pace and maintains a steady position on the handler's left side. For competition purposes, the dog is required to sit automatically at each halt.

Initially, I was taught to give my greyhound a quick pop on the collar if she was not in the correct position or not looking at me. For a soft dog especially, imagine how the collar corrections suck all the joy that could possibly be found in heeling. This is another reason I fell in love with clicker training.

With a clicker, I can identify behaviors I want my greyhound to repeat including a nice heel position. Marking and rewarding the correct heeling behaviors makes heeling fun for the dog and easy for the handler to teach.

Here is Riley demonstrating some beginner heel work. She did better than I had expected, but you can see that when she loses heel position, I use a little leash to get her back into place. There are no corrections. I simply click & treat when she is right again.

Pure clicker trainers prefer to train heeling without a leash. I believe using a leash helps to speed up the process because you can at least keep your dog in the general area, so he or she is more likely to succeed.

Here is Reagan. She has been working on heeling a little longer than Riley has. The clicks & treats come less frequently. Her criteria has been raised and I want a little more from her before I reward.

I think some trainers resist using a clicker/marker for heeling because it does interrupt a moment of good work. I find that it is well worth the interruption. Over time, I introduce the idea of working for a longer period of time for a jackpot. Katie understands this concept precisely. Here is Katie showing advanced heeling.

Katie is trained and titled through Utility Dog obedience and is 8 year older so she is way ahead of Riley and Reagan.