Focus Heeling - Page 1

I have tried everything i can think of to get the focus when heeling high drive shepherd - does anyone have any suggestions????

Focus Heeling....
Figuratively tell me ... what is that- Focus Heeling ..in your view ...But in your mind , think about what that means to you .
Next , I want you to ask yourself , for what reason , however you define focus , your dog should do that ? Because you said so ?
Last factor ... you want your dog to , again in your defintion of the word focus, but.. this is a big but.. what is your role in this focusing ? What I am trying to establish is that your answer is in the question itself.
The reason I write this to you ... because in truth , what I think you are looking for .. will be different from the many answers that you will get from posters. This is way to long for me to explain and to give you guidence with this in 1 post . However , I would be more than happy to guide you if you PM me. If you decide not , then ok ..... BTW , for the general readers : most often if you use a ball to get a dog to look at you .. then what you are in truth training is - a dog that looks for a ball....

Thank you very much for your reply.
I want that focus when doing the heeling in the PSA/PDS trial.
By that i mean when they are heeling they are continuously looking at me.

How do i PM you - i would love to hear your advice on this.

Thank you very much!

Click on the name 'Centurian' at the beginning of his post; this will bring you a User Info screen and it will say "Send personal message to", click on that & you get a box to type your message in.

Tell him what you are already doing to try to get & keep your dog's attention on you.

Focused heeling looks different to different people.

Its anything from a dog staying in heel, with head turning and glancing up at handler often, to a dog prancing with its head pointed straight upward.

OP, please define what you're wanting, and provide a video of what your dog is doing that frustrates you.

Not sure what Centurian sent you in a PM that couldn't be said here. Also not sure how one doesn't have the time to explain it here, but does in PMs.

My best advice would be to find a good trainer or club to help you out. Anyone can tell you anything in this forum, but sometimes things get lost in translation and it is always better to have someone there to help you out because they can see what you and your dog are doing.

As to earlier comments, if someone thinks that the dog is merely staring up at a ball, that is either a bad trainer making the statement, or bad training in itself. Through proper training, I can stick the reward (ball, tug, frisbee, food, etc) right in front of a dog's mouth and it will not look at the reward because it has been properly trained to know that the reward doesn't come from looking at the ball, but from the focus.

I don't know the age of your dog, or where you are at in training. Don't know what you're using for rewards. Don't know if you're marking the proper behaviors and rewarding when you should. That is the beauty of dogs. They will do what you want to get what they want. If you simply hand them the ball for nothing, they will do nothing.

I start this before I get to heeling. If training with food, at 7 weeks, put a piece of food in each hand and extend your arms to the sides. The pup will look at each and go after each, but as soon as the pup looks at you, you Mark the behavior with "ok" or "good" or whatever you want, but always the same. Do this a few times and the pup will stop looking at your hands and quickly learn that they are rewarded for the focus. Over time you increase the amount of time he's focused before you Mark and reward. With food, for me personally, it is more difficult to balance what I want, because I also want the dog pushing me and driving for the good. If I have a dog with good drive that I can use a toy, I would rather do that. To me, it is easier. I can take a pup and build his drive for the ball on a string and I don't have to worry about all the treats, having to reload my pouch, reload my hand, dropping some on the ground, etc.

With the toy, I like to build the drive first. Without the drive for the reward, everything is going to be flat, slow and going through the motions. After I build the drive, while playing, you throw in a sit, Mark and reward. Go back to playing and do it again. Throw in a down, Mark, reward, play, etc. At this point, I'm not as concerned with focus. At this point, I want the dog to learn that the faster he sits, the faster he gets the reward. When he is slamming his butt into the ground and dropping to a down as fast as he can, I start to get focus like I would with the food. From here, I move to heeling. At first, a few steps of focus, Mark the behavior, reward and play. You do not have to put the ball under your chin, in your armpit, I'm a clip around your neck, etc. At this point, you can have it in your left hand right next to the dog and it won't matter because he has been trained that focus gets the reward.

Go watch some Ivan Balabanov, Michael Ellis, etc videos.

"Not sure what Centurian sent you in a PM that couldn't be said here. Also not sure how one doesn't have the time to explain it here, but does in PMs."

And I thought I am the only one wondering ... :)

@ Susie

Nope.

When it comes to sport there is a certain type of picture that people would like to achieve in focused heeling. Usually people like a little bit of collection (how little or extreme is up to the handler) and a nice focus either wrap or head up high.

Different Sporting Venues require or want more or less Attention/Focus to the handler...
Schutzhund is a Dog Sport that wants more attention to the handler in Obedience...Other Obedience Venues want the same...then there's other Sporting Venues that don't want that decisive type attention...they want the dog to be more attentive to what they're supposed to be doing and less towards the handler...
If you're interested in a certain Dog Sport such as PSA then I would ask the people that you work with to explain and more important...show you what is expected and how to get it...
Are you working with a Dog Club or more on your own?

~Bob~