Young and enthusiastic dogs sometimes forge. They are green and haven't learned the fine tuning of heeling. It takes time for heeling to be really good. I don't like to discourage the young and green, so I work at helping them learn where the rewardable position is.

Overloading in drive makes mine forge. I have to adjust to keep the drive level workable.

 

Overloading in drive makes mine forge. I have to adjust to keep the drive level workable.

In English, please?

 

Left turns. Left turns push into the dog, and can help get them back. Left turns also ask the dog to slow down, because you are the one who has to move more, not the dog. Avoid a lot of right turns with a forging dog since they ask a dog to speed up.

Only reward in the correct spot and pay attention to the location of your reward. Most people inadvertantly reward forward. The dog in anticipation on the reward will move forward. I will throw the reward behind me and usually off to the left on a dog that's forging. Also, if you find you have a problem with crowding you're probably rewarding too often from your right hand.

I will use collar corrections, but the trick is to mark and reward the instant they are in the correct position. I also won't sacrifice enthusiasm for position though, so I won't beat the dog down. I will use my body to help them adjust to the correct position and then reward there.

I will also play with the drive level I am using. My dogs are more likely to forge for their toys...so if that's a major problem I might go to food. And within food you can adjust too. Kibble is probably the lowest.

 

Sounds like great advice! And left turns do help with a forging dog (mine!).

 

Great advice indeed. Thanks Samba and JKlatsky! We'll be doing lots of left turn and move back to food in the next few weeks. I think we are definitely looking at a case of overloading. Today at training I had Ike sitting in heel or at least I thought I did and then I heard someone said "He is not sitting". I looked down expecting to find the hover butt sit. Nope, his butt was down. It was his front two feet that were off the ground and he was just "sitting" there holding that kangaroo-ish position, waiting for his next command. So I guess add the new "kangaroo sit" to the list of things we have to work on lol.

 

When Nikon forges I stop heeling forward and start skipping backward, "tapping" him a few times like a wake up call, "hello dog, where were you?" and then break back into heeling. This kind of doodling in general has helped him pay more attention to turns and changes in pace.

 

Thanks Lies for the tip. That's similar to what my TD suggests. Move around, spin, turn, back up, keep him guessing.

Details, details, details ... getting the big picture in place was easy. Getting these little things right ... not so much!!!

 

I like it because it's a correction but also a wake up call. Instead of just yanking on the dog to get him to be here or there, I start moving backward and correct so it's more like, "Hey, I am back here going this way, where are you?" than constantly nagging the dog to keep the shoulders aligned. More of teaching the dog to pay attention than being super nit-picky about position. For position I "take it inside" which means food instead of toys, less drive but more thinking/learning from the dog and taking it more slowly but being really precise.

 

Those more precise movements do wake the dog up and require more attention. When I get the attention, I help the dog find the right spot. I may guide, I might use my hand to draw attention to the focal point. As soon as the dog is correct, I mark that. If the dog is more accomplished and I feel that we can get several steps of correctness, then I really let the dog know that it is in the right place. "that's it! really nice! good job!" in a very happy and admiring tone of voice. The manuevering makes them engage more and then the praise of correctness... they seem to understand this is what is wanted.

I am not saying this is what you particularly are doing... but I do see this often. People work to get the correctness and then when the dog gets it right they seem to take it for granted and keep going. If I am struggling for particular picayune position (to the dog), like in heeling, once we achieve it I really do make a marked change in my interaction with the dog as we are moving. Stopping to mark it each time results in very little heeling practice, so the bridge communication is very important.

If the dog is not "finding" the right place, I might even just hold physically hold them there. Sometimes I am phooey on shaping.

 

Hmm ... I think you have been spying on me? How do you know that is what I've been doing!?

I definitely need to praise more while heeling. I usually praise when we stop but then stopping at heel position is not his problem. I had my TD and a few others watch the heeling the other day and their conclusion is he knows the heel position very well ... WHEN YOU GUYS ARE NOT MOVING. And because he is pretty good with his rear end awareness stuff, he can back into heel position very fast from anywhere - as soon as he stops and he realizes that he is off, he flies back to heel. So at the beginning he is correct and at the end he is correct (or he makes himself correct), it's the middle where he is all over the map.

Of course, it also does not help that he is still hopping ... hard to keep heel position when you hop instead of walk ... I think there it is just a matter of too much drive for the exercise. I just need to tone it down for him.

 

Left turns, Left pivots.... and the biggest of all- reward from the left hand! I have started rewarding from my left hand and dropping a ball a little bit behind me. It has worked for Eris! If you give the reward from the right hand, you are only drawing the dog into you, asking for crowding.

 

Yes, when Hogan is bouncing, pouncing along like a trick pony it is hard for me to tell where his position is exactly. It is a bit of work balancing drive and correctness. Sometimes you have to kind of go back and forth between the two in different sessions. One time allow more drive, the next work on correctness with less drive... back and forth until the two come together.

 

Nothing to add but... when I read those threads all I want is to take my dog and work! Too bad it is 00:11 AM, there is a storm out there and I still don't finish my Pathology homework...

 

Dianna, so far I have been giving him the ball right above him, slightly to the left side of his head but I like the idea of dropping the ball behind him. I may even try throwing it behind. Thanks!

 

This is from this morning. It was meant to be a lower drive session - hence the use of a tug instead of a ball but as you can see Ike had other ideas lol. It's hard to tell whether the forging has gotten better or not because Ike's wildness. I think I see a slight improvement from last month. Any critique/suggestion welcome.

 

Jason, you are a natural and Ike is a kangaroo!
I think his exhuberance will do both of you just fine. I wish Karlo was so bouncy, you can always snuff it, to bring it up is much, much harder.
What about that ball video? I bet it is full of energy!

 

I WISH Stark was that enthusiastic about heeling and OB work!

WOW.... I am soooooo loving Ike!

Seriously, I agree with Jane, your a natural!

There's a reason you don't see any video of me doing OB work with Stark... lol.

 

He looks good, maybe forging and crowding you a bit at times but he really responds well to your body, like left turns, and you're so good with the reward I doubt it's really a problem. He's such a bouncy puppy! I bet he will settle in and look super!

Right now I'm kind of what Samba describes, drive vs. correctness depending on the session and my goals for that session. Any time my dog sustains the level of drive I want for some time, I always reward. Like, say we're just going from the van out to the field and he decides to offer really nice prancy heeling along the way. I didn't ask for that or really care, but I reward that.

 

I like his enthusiasm.

Having had a couple bouncing dogs (especially at fast paces) all I do to fix it is issue a downward directional correction a couple of times followed by a quick reward when they get it right. I don't know how it would work for you, but I would just hold the lead and lock it by my left leg, and then when my dog would bounce it would be an instant correction. Seemed to be very effective and fix the bouncing within a couple sessions. I don't like to let it go on because it can become a habit- so almost as soon as they show that behavior I will give a negative for it. The Mohnwiese site on heeling addresses the importance of correcting the bouncing pretty early on, apparently it was a problem with Ellute- just so you don't think I'm making it up!

 

I don't like to let it go on because it can become a habit- so almost as soon as they show that behavior I will give a negative for it. The Mohnwiese site on heeling addresses the importance of correcting the bouncing pretty early on, apparently it was a problem with Ellute- just so you don't think I'm making it up!

Great, now you tell me ...

Actually what's weird is I read the Mohnwiese method on heeling and I taught Ike's heeling basically using a combination of Mohnwiese and Ellis but somehow when I was reading it the first time (right before I got Ike) I skipped over the part about not letting the dog jump to get the food ... or I didn't take it seriously enough! A few weeks ago, someone lent me Joanne Plumb's DVD and she makes her dogs jump up for the reward. The idea is jumping for the reward will improve the dogs' collection and get the dogs to push off with their back legs when heeling. Is it possible that I've overtrained that part, that Ike now has TOO MUCH collection in his steps, hence the bounciness?

Also, this has me wondering: when heeling, at some point Ike would settle into a nice trot for a few steps and then he would go back to bouncing. I posted this video on the other board just for laughs ... but I am curious as to why he would go into a prance like this by himself. What's going on there? What's going through his mind as he goes into a trot? Is he responding to something he is seeing in me? Or is he just doing it for the heck of it. Obviously I don't think getting him to prance like THAT is realistic (nor really desirable lol) but I wonder how I can get it into his head that the trot is what I want.

 

Every one does training in their own way, so nothing is the only way. For me, once I am past the food luring, I don't do a lot of off leash heeling training. I find the leash so helpful in guiding or correcting the dog so that we don't practice unwanted behaviors. Such as described above regarding bouncing.

 

Another question I have is: at this point, given how wild he is when heeling, getting him to trot would almost be like a capping exercise for him, right? The idea is to teach him to control himself and not simply give full, unbridled expression to his drive? When Ellis saw him as a 6 months old pup, he commented that this boy is a very extroverted, expressive pup that likes to wear his emotion on his sleeves ... no kidding!

I'm going to try the downward pressure leash idea tomorrow. Normally I do heel with a leash but when we were filming the heeling over the weekend, someone yelled out "DROP THE LEASH" and like a trained circus monkey, I did Just doing what I am told.

 

Well you do reward high. He's probably bouncing from enthusiasm and anticipation of the reward and a little loss of control.

I think that you get that prance when all the energy that they are putting into bouncing goes instead into the movement of the legs. I actually get a really cool front leg hop on Cade that almost looks like a flying lead change when he's really amped about what we're doing and he's trying to contain himself. Me slowing down my pace also can get him to bump into a more lifting prance.

This was my most recent effort with Cade (who I taught to heel using a combo on Mohnwiese and Debby Zappia) He's just learning his finish and his about turn, so he's a little behind me on those and working out his position...But I think you can see in spots the lifting I was talking about.

Actually upon reviewing the video you can see where he starts to bounce in the fast pace, You can't hear me give him a verbal negative but I do and then he settles down off the bouncing.

ETA- Yes I think you're right- like a capping exercise.

 

That's interesting. Cade went into a beautiful trot right after you corrected him for bouncing. Maybe I am not yelling at Ike enough

 

Doesn't Javir seem like he has a bouncing problem (Holy jumpin' finish!). I've seen videos of really prancing dogs like Lary and Quel but Javir is only one I have found that bounces like that (I'm sure there are others ...)

 

It looks like it might be the "collection" that is contributing.
If you watch, Ike gets both back legs under himself at the same time. This normally would propel him pretty far forward. But, if he goes forward he will be way out of position. He tends to take the propulsion into upward motion as that helps keep him in the reward zone better.

Why is he collecting up that much? Is it an attempt to get to the reward? Is it because he was trained to move that way?

Can you experiment and find what helps him keep a normal stride with all four legs rather than gather the two back ones up under him? Longer strides on your part? Moving faster?
Holding him down with the lead so he can not move forward forged or up in the air? I think you will have to try and see what works.

I am sure drive adds to it? Can you get him into enough drive with just your voice for the heeling so he can practice more "relaxed" striding?

 

Longer strides on your part? Moving faster?

Ike needs a taller handler with longer legs!

 

I am going to try these suggestions in the next few days and see what works. I definitely thinks he is over-collecting. Good call on Ike getting both back legs under himself at the same time. I didn't see it until you pointed it out.