Why train to have GSD look at you during a Heel? - Page 3

On another forum we had some discussion about this with a USCA judge.  He made it clear they are NOT deducting for eye contact or head's up heeling, only when the dog is not in position (wrapping, forcing, lagging, crowding, constantly rearing up on the hind legs,  being too collected in the rear like constantly sitting or scooting the butt).

VKGSD's,
do you have a copy of the rule change?  I can not find it anywhere.  I did find some reference to the heeling on another GSD board but that is all I have found so far.... Frustrating for those of us who care about points....

brynjulf

thanks alot

Here is a presentation of the rule changes.  Note that continuous focus is not only not penalized but *required*.

http://www.germanshepherddog.com/documents/2012IPOrules.ppt

Thank you very much VKGSD's.  Doesnt look like I will have to change my training style at all.  I havent ever had a prancer with the way I train the heel. 

Heeling shall be normal movement or gait, prancing or bouncing is not correct.

 

 

 Heeling shall be normal movement or gait, prancing or bouncing is not correct.

 

 

Oh one thing, ther is *NOT* a second left turn added, that part has been corrected.  As far as I know the rest of that presentation stands.  Pracing is OK as long as the dog isn't bouncing or rearing up.

Freaky.... do you see that ghost writing on my post!  Hilarious :)  I was reading the presentation and had a couple windows open :)

Just my 2 cents.  I haven't competed but have been training my dog to compete.

I want the dog to focus on me, not on other dogs, trainers, or other sources of distraction.  But more importantly, a lot of subtle signals are communicated to the dog with the upper body.  A slight lean forward, a slight lean backward, a turning of the shoulders to the left or to the right communicates to the dog what I will be doing in the next split second.  It's easier for the dog to see the signals if it's looking up at me.  I could train the dog to look at my shoulders, but I think it's easier for to train it to look at my face.

Also dogs are not dumb and can distinguish between obedience and protection.  In obedience, my dogs focus on *me*.  In protection, I don't want them staring at my face, or making me dizzy by constantly whipping their heads from my eye contact to foward, I want them looking forward at the helper.  During the obedience phase, we are demonstrating what we can do as a team.  No reason for the dog to be acting suspicious of its surroundings during that phase.  When I say "look at me and heel" the dog should do it.

I was talking to my trainer last night about this because we were working on keeping the dog's attention.  This trainer trains police dogs.

The objective isn't eye contact.  The objective is for the dog to be looking at your shoulder or even the arm pit.

Eye contact in a heel can cause the dog to want to get ahead to maintain the eye contact.  They'll want to walk ahead and look back in order to see the handler's eyes.  This is not desired.

But, you want the dog to pay attention to you.  They can be trained to look towards you (at your armpit) by holding a toy or whatever under your arm pit.