| Subject: competitive heeling |
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dominicr
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Date Posted: 19:50:32 06/24/07 Sun
Attention and Control fundamentals in the Schutzhund Competition Dog:Attention Training & Heeling
Posted on June 24, 2007 at 03:17:21 PM by
by Jerry Bradshaw President, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc.
In my last article I discussed some training techniques for enhancing all around control in a beginning Schutzhund competition dog. In this article I wish to deal directly with competitive heeling. Competitive heeling refers to heeling with attention and displaying a picture of enthusiasm, correctness, and control. Good heeling is a thing of beauty, a partnership between trainer and dog. Good attentive heeling is so important to a competition dog because it sets the tone for all of your work, and I mean all. It helps to control and focus your dog, before tracking on your approach to the scent pad, not to mention it is present in virtually all of your obedience and protection exercises. There is no reason for poor heeling, yet we observe it all the time. I will attempt to share with you some techniques I have employed for teaching competitive heeling. I want to make it clear that I have borrowed ideas and techniques from many other trainers and have used them in a way that suits a given dog’s particular temperament. I have learned a lot from other competition trainers I have known, watched and read, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. Many of these techniques I will discuss have been around a long time, and have been refined by those that have used them. In this article I will describe some techniques. A technique is useless if it is not applied with a proper understanding of timing (of both rewards and corrections) and when to move on to the next step, after proper time has been devoted to repetition. Additionally, you must use your own creativity as a trainer to make adjustments during the process to help your dog achieve the picture you desire. Thus, what I present here are some guidelines, as the trainer you must make the recipe your own based on what you know about your dog’s strengths and weaknesses.I cannot emphasize enough, that to be a good competition trainer, one must understand how dogs learn and process information. A thorough understanding of the processes of operant and classical conditioning is very important. It always amazes me how many people join a training club and do not make the investment to read and learn about what they are doing. If you wish to be competitive, you must be a student of dog training before you will be a practitioner. Areas like learning theory, behavior, and methods are important foundations for the aspiring trainer.
Canine Requirements
I prefer the dog to have both high food drive and high object drive (I like jute rolls rather than balls or other toys), but you can get away with only food drive if that is all your dog displays. What if he has neither food nor object drive? Find a new competition dog. All kidding aside, our goal is to mold an attentive picture of driven work, no drive, no driven work, that simple. I break my heeling training into 2 parts: the attention phase, and the drive phase. In the attention phase, we teach the dog what attention is, and then we teach him that this attention is mandatory.When we are finished with this phase, neither the food nor our toy are required as “attractors” tothe dog for his attention, meaning that they are not necessary for the dog to be attentive. Weneed not rely on the dog believing the ball is in our coat in order for him to be attentive, becausewe teach him that attention is mandatory. Yes, attention is also rewarded, and inattention iscorrected. I will deal with the motivation vs. compulsion question at the end of this article,although I have never had a problem with a dog showing very high drive in heeling despite themandatory nature of the training.
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