ADVANCED OBEDIENCE WEEK TWO:

Heeling,

You now have two heeling patterns in your competition. One on leash and on off. So, twice as many points for heeling. Remember if your leash is in the proper position, the dogs are basically heeling off leash. Practice about turns, u turns and fast stops, spiral left and right, etc. Once you have your dog warmed up, take the leash and loop it up around your neck, leaving it hang down on your right side. Be ready to correct with your left hand if necessary. With the leash around your neck you will feel any tightness in the leash if your dog is lagging. Pop forward and encourage your dog up. If your dog gets distracted remember to say “watch me” followed by a treat to get him focused on you again. Only when you dog is heeling along without you feeling any pressure on your neck are you ready for the leash to come off! This includes doing fasts, and slows, and spirals. Our goal is to heel enough that the dog is so used to staying with you he won’t care if the leash is there or not. This means lots of repetitious heeling! Just remember to break up the sessions with play, ball playing, tug of war, whatever your dog likes to do. Also practice some stationary right and left turns. With dog sitting in heel position pivot 90 degrees to the left or right having the dog reposition itself, then continue heeling.

Sits and downs.

It has been awhile since we practiced, so we need to go back to the beginning to reinforce our stay training. For your next level of competition you will be leaving your dog and going out 25-30 feet, but we still had dogs getting up and laying down on sits last year, so it means some retraining. The only way is fix the problem is to backtrack…So, for the next two weeks I don’t want anyone doing a stay without the leash on! Only go out to the end of the leash. Walk back to your dog, walk around, and leave again. Talk to your dog, you can say anything except Come, OK, Here, Swing, or Heel. They should not move unless they hear one of these five words.( So I know you actually read this and I am not making up the lesson plans for no reason, make sure you put a small x next to your name on the sign in sheet! Those that do so get an extra treat.) You can say their name or watch me and they should not move. The most important thing in teaching a solid stay is immediate correction. Watch your dog, if you see him start to move say “no”! If he does move, quickly go to him, and place him back into whatever position he was in. Remember to wait a few seconds when returning before the release, and then a big OK and lots of praise after.

Come,

Once again, backtrack a little on your comes. It is a good idea to do some come-fore’s and a release before they would normally sit. You want to keep them enthusiastic about coming to you. Practice on leash, remember its Fred, come, and a little pop just after the come. If they hesitate or are coming in slowly, go ahead and encourage them with praise to hurry up, and have a treat ready when they get there. Practice sometimes having them sit in front, other times just tell them OK when they get close. It can help to have them come in and sit in front properly if you hold a treat in front of you. Now is the time to teach them to sit straight in front of you. If they start to sit crooked, back up a few steps holding the treat in front to encourage a straight sit.

The finish,

Since we now have rally, which requires that the dogs finish both to the left and to the right, we are going to teach both the swing finish and the go around finish. To teach the swing, have the dog sitting in heel position, say stay and pivot around to the front. Say “swing” and simultaneously move your left foot forward and to the right, giving a pop straight up. The dog should move forward and turn his hindquarters around as you continue heeling forward. To teach the go around behind you finish, once again have the dog directly in front of you. With the leash in your right hand say heel, then back up and pop the dog toward you to the right. Reach your left hand around behind you grabbing the leash from your right hand, then stepping forward so your dog moves up to the heel position. Practice both ways, and make sure you mix up this lesson up with some stays.

If you lose this paper, remember poshpets.com has all the weekly lesson plans posted there. Let me know if you have readily available access to the Internet, it will save on paper so we are a little “greener”!