Heelwork with a Husky

[Bec]

Hello everyone

I uploaded a little video this afternoon that I thought I would share with you all. Micha is (almost) seven years old and really hasn't done much formal obedience training. Generally, I do more obedience work with my beagle, because I'm training her for competition - Micha and I just train for fun. He really loves training and is a fast learner. He is very food and toy motivated, but in this particular video I am using food as a motivator and reward.

I taught him how to do right about and left turns literally two days ago. As you'll see in the video, this is when I turn around and he either follows me, or moves around my back to stay on my left side. Pretty basic stuff, but fun to teach him nonetheless

I did this video on my back deck, so you could see just how little space it takes to do training like this. For those of you who watched my last video with Daisy doing similar work, you can tell Micha isn't as precise with where he sits and sometimes needs reminders to sit when we stop. But, he's not bad for a middle aged Siberian whose had VERY minimal training in this sort of work

YouTube - Heelwork with a Husky

In this video Mish demonstrates some basic heelwork, a stay and (attempt at) formal recall, stays while I throw food in front of him and doesn't eat it until I give the release word. I was also amazed that my little Beagle stayed sitting quietly in the corner!

Oh - you can see what a smart arse he is the way he 'woo woos' at me at one point! And I was cracking up when he licked my hand when I gave him the down signal, I had the sausage I was using for training in that hand earlier, bahaha.

[Sarah]

That's fantastic, thanks so much for sharing - Kimba and Kasier are now hanging their heads in shame ROFL

added to rep

[PawPrints]

am gonna look into air fare for sendin dakota to you cool video shows it can be done added to your rep

[Ice and Cripton]

Gosh now your just showing off!!! Did i mention i have shipped Alaska to Aussie and she should arrive by air mail outside your house by noon......lol

Hes very good, i loved his little "whoo whoo" >> as if to say "common, gimme that treat". How do you get a dog to heel? Alaska will walk by my side but she never looks up at me, not nearly as good as Micha:)

[Bec]

Hes very good, i loved his little "whoo whoo" >> as if to say "common, gimme that treat". How do you get a dog to heel? Alaska will walk by my side but she never looks up at me, not nearly as good as Micha:)

Thanks I think he's pretty cute

I find it pretty easy to teach the basic heel position, I just use lots of reinforcement (whatever switches the dog on most, food/toy/praise etc). As you can probably see in the video, I hold the hand with the treats in it against my stomach and doing this is a great way to get the dog to follow you and look up at you to start with - when they do so (i.e. they are in the right position and are giving you lots of eye contact and focus) you treat them. The better they get the more infrequently you can treat them. In the video I posted of Daisy doing heelwork I actually didn't have any treats on me at all (she knows she always gets a reward at the end).

[siberian_wolf]

great video, added to rep

I can't have the sound hear as working (in a way, lol) now and would get very weird looks if they all suddenly heard woo woos coming from the computer lol will watch with sound later

[Ice and Cripton]

okay, ill give it a try and video my success....or not!!

[siberian_wolf]

lol lol just watched with sound now. Love his little wooooo bless lol and then sneeze afterwards

[Bec]

can't wait to see your progress, Ice! It's a great thing to teach because you can use it on walks if you need your dog to focus, look at you and come in close. I often use the heel command on walks with my beagle if we are walkng past another dog or I need her attention on me.