This one is borrowed from horse trainers. Making right-angle inside turns forces your dog to watch your legs and make sure he’s in position to avoid getting stepped on. It’s kind of like a dance step. Practice often and your pup is bound to become a good partner.

Heeling with an inside turn

Danger's ready for a loose-leash walk

Every dog must learn to walk on a leash. Mike covered informal heeling off-lead, using a slip collar. Here’s how the ADW trainers do it with their service dogs.

The Ideal Scenario: ADW teaches loose-lead walking (and heeling, once you unsnap the lead) with a clicker and treats. It’s incredibly simple. Say your walk cue, Let’s go or heel, and set off. As long as the dog is in the heeling zone next to your knee, click and treat frequently. Then gradually lengthen the amount of time and distance required for a treat. Most dogs are pretty quick to figure out that their place in relation to the handler is what draws the treat. I also like to look for frequent eye contact. You can promote this by clicking when you’re getting a good heel position and the dog looks up at you. Eye contact means the dog’s focus is on you and not what’s going on in the world. The nice thing about this method is that it doesn’t require any force, a must for service dogs who will be handled by people with disabilities.

The Problem of the Outgoing Dog: With Danger, I’ve found that as soon as I give him his treat he suddenly speeds up and is out ahead foraging and looking for people and other dogs to greet. Like most training issues, the tasks are easy; the self-control is hard.

1. Start with a preemptive leave it when obvious distractions are coming down the path toward you. Most problems of pulling can be fixed with a well-conditioned “leave it.”
2. Some of the books I’ve been reading lately explain the dog’s urge to go ahead as an attempt to become a pack leader. Others explain it simply: Because it works. Whether it’s the former or the latter doesn’t matter; you can’t give in. When he goes ahead, stop, get him to come back whatever way works best. Then make him wait. Then set off again. Don’t let him pull you even a little. Just a few inches of give can reinforce the behavior.
3. Like anything, loose-leash walking is much easier to teach if it’s started at a young age. Train it in as a good habit early, rather than trying to fix a bad habit late.
4. If all else fails, use punishment. We’ll go over punishment in another installment.

A Good Exercise

1. Walk Toward a Goal: In this one, Sue set out a bowl of food at the end of a hallway. Danger and I set off toward it and as long as he was walking at my knee, we could keep going. As soon as he moved ahead we had to go back to the starting line. This is a great one to teach a dog self control because calmness and patience are the only way to ge that big reward. And you don’t need to use food, either. We repeated the exercise with another dog that Danger really wanted to meet as the reward on the other side of the room. As long as he walked at heel he’d get to greet the other dog.

Mike heeling with them dogs

A civil, well-mannered dog must learn early on to have patience while walking on a loose lead—no pulling, jumping, or ground sniffing. He’ll need to negotiate any obstacles you’ll encounter—logs, ditches, embankments—without hesitation or interference. And he must work with an eye constantly on you for leadership and direction, regardless of distractions. Perfect the on-lead heel and you can move to the ultimate goal: A dog that will heel off lead without constant corrections or reminders. Here’s how to get started.

1. Decide whether you want your dog to heel on your right or left side. Then be consistent. No switching sides. Start all of your training drills from this position from now on.
2. Start your heeling lesson on pavement, which does two things. First, it gives your dog a straight line to guide him (this is helpful later in retrieving). Second, pavement doesn’t have all of the interesting smells of a field that will break your dog’s concentration. Sniffing equals avoidance. Your dog’s concentration must be on you.
3. Use a slip collar that produces popping sound when the lead is snapped quickly. The classic, simple choker-style chain collar works well, but lately I’ve been using these rubberized leads and collars that slide more smoothly and use dot tread to give you a bit more control. Use a pronged pinch collar only on the wildest dogs. (I don’t recommend these to beginning trainers.) Also, forget those chest harnesses and collars with nose loops. They don’t correct pulling and may actually promote it. All you need is a simple slip collar.
4. Have your dog sit. Say his name. When he makes eye contact, say “heel,” (once, only) and set off at your pace, not his. It’s much more difficult to get a pup to heel slowly than to pretend he’s heeling by quickening your pace to keep up with him. Go slowly. Don’t keep repeating “heel” as a correction. You’ll only add confusion.
5. When your dog tries to walk ahead, lag behind, or wander off, quickly change direction and pop the lead as a correction. That popping sound and sideways jerk mimic the bite of the pack. Changing direction shows him that you’re picking the route and he needs to pay attention to you to avoid correction. Your pup learns to stay in place gradually rather than being pulled into place constantly.
6. To start moving to an off-lead heel, drop your lead and let it drag. If you need to regain control, just step on the lead.

An obedient heel, both on- and off-lead, is a must for any dog that’s going to accompany you out in public. Short lessons should begin when your dog is as young as eight weeks old but, no dog is too old to start. Old dogs can surely learn new tricks.