OB460: Shaping a Flashy and Confident Heel - Foundations

Week 1.3: Shaping Rear Movement on a Disk

Why?

Teaches the dog where their rear legs are, which leads to snappy left turns, a dog that knows how to stay in straight heeling position, and helps on finishes.

This is Reiki showing off his left turn moves:

How to get this:

Steps:

• go to front feet platform
• name go to platform-optional
• practice still front feet on the platform (about 15 seconds is all that is needed), check out the small dog lecture for some feeding suggestions
• lure the right rear movement from the front and then the side (1 or 2 sessions)
• offered right rear movement from the side- click for movement
• offered movement from the side- formal position on handler’s part, feet relative to platform, click when dog ends up in proper heel position
• Desensitize hand position and treat position
• Add movement and arousal, possibly another reinforcement type
• name it like you do any clicker trained behavior

Go to platform: Start with clicker training/shaping your dog onto an elevated tub, paving stone, phone book, disc, anything that is about the right size for your dog’s front feet to fit comfortably.

I verbally name this skill because I want my dog to be able to work around platforms and props without being magnetized to them. However, when I am actively working on moving to the left and the right on the disc, I'd rather the dog "offer" the getting on the disc, so that the whole session can be about shaping and offered behavior, instead of getting into the trap of verbally cuing a behavior and then shaping off of that.

Make sure your dog will do a duration stay of about 15 seconds on the bucket. This is important because it helps the dog realize that their front feet should stay on the bucket when you start asking for some hind end motion around it. Like I show in the video, I feed in position on the bucket and usually tie in eye contact with it as well. This step is especially important for smaller dogs and dogs who tend to be quick in their feet movements.

Here is Bayles demonstrating that:

Now let’s concentrate on teaching the dog to move his hind feet to the right. You can do the other directions later (and I would recommend it for good fronts!) but for now we want the dog thinking “butt to the right, butt to the right”.  I usually lure the dog to the right from my front first to create wide steps and fluid movement. I want to control what the dog is likely to offer when start to shape the offered behavior, so I get the dog used to doing the behavior that I want. I find that if you try to shape this exercise without luring, many dogs take tiny little steps and the handler clicks that behavior once too often, creating dancy feet instead of movement to the right. Or, excited dogs start flinging their hind ends around, creating a jump into heel position that I don’t desire either. However, if you feel comfortable shaping this from the get go, skip the luring part and do it!

Luring: take the food and move it to the left of your dog’s head. His nose should follow the food, which means that eventually his right hind leg will move. Mark that movement verbally or with a clicker and reward and repeat. Make sure you are marking when the dog is moving, not the stopped foot.

Here is Kim Dawson’s Smith showing this skill from the front:

Here is Smith showing this from the side in heel position. Kim’s hand is a little cut off because Smith is cute and short:

Once the dog is going one step, expect two steps pretty quickly. You are looking for a smooth continuous behavior, not a one step, pause, one step, pause, and not a jump or hop to the right. I usually start with me standing in front of the dog, luring, then once the dog is comfortable with that, standing to the dog’s right and luring him into me. This usually takes one session. Don’t do much more than that because I want the dog to “offer” moving to his right, not become dependent on you helping him.

Offered right movement: It goes like this: lure, mark, reward, lure, mark, reward, wait. When the dog gives the slightest leg moment, mark and reward. You might lure a couple times more before waiting for the offered behavior again, but quickly fade that out. At first, the offered behavior won’t be as good as the lured, but as you and the dog get the idea, that changes! The key is to click any effort by the dog and to not expect a whole step at first.

Here is Ones demonstrating a lured to offered behavior. I staged this; he already offers a fluid butt move to the right so he was a little confused. It doesn’t matter where you are at this point, or how you are standing relative to the dog. At this stage, you are clicking for any movement to the right, NOT expecting the dog to end up in heel position. I like to keep my head cocked to the side so I can see those rear feet and click any movement I see, rather than when the feet are still after the dog has taken a step.

Offered right rear movement into heel, click for position. Here he is giving me total offered right butt moves into heel position. At this point I am more formally in heel position, with my feet in proper position relative to the bucket (toes ahead of the bucket so that the dog’s front feet land in the middle of my sole) and I am clicking for position (when he gets all the way to heel.) It might be helpful to have a mirror in front of you at this stage so you can see that butt!

I should be feeding him to the outside of his head to encourage that butt even more to the right. I use the treat feeding to distract him as I move away from him, so I can reset my distance away from him and he can offer his movement back into heel. 

A very important next step is taking your prompting movement out of the picture and getting true OFFERED right butt moves from the dog. Here is Gabe with Meika showing how to feed while moving so that the dog doesn’t use your moving as a cue. Prompt one movement, then feed and move at the same time. This way when the dog looks up from eating his treat, you are already out of heel position and the dog has to think how to get back into it, rather than just follow your movement.

Hand position: At this step, I want you to consciously change up how you hold your hands. Practice with your hands at your waist in AKC trial picture, hands behind your back, hands by your side. Also, if you’ve been keeping the treat in your left hand for easy feeding, try holding it in your right hand, and transferring it behind you after the click and then practice passing it in front of you. Basically, I’m of the opinion that I don’t want the dog to care where the hands or the treats are and I train for this. I find this is very helpful to get most of our body help that we’re unaware of out of the “cue” picture for the dog.

Here is Christine and Inga demonstrating this:

Add movement and excitement by either adding a thrown reset treat or use a toy.

Here Ones is with the ball as a reward (which makes higher arousal and usually less thought) and I am standing in such a way that he is going from in front of me to swinging the butt into heel position. I can’t quite tell if his butt is straight with my body or not when I am training so I will start training with a mirror or a spotter. If anything I want Ones to over compensate because of his structure. He is 5 months old and I have yet to see him trot without crabbing his hind feet to the left.

Attach a verbal cue to the movement: In the above video, I am also verbally cuing him.

Here is my favorite way to name a clicker trained behavior, by interspersing with other known cues. In this case, I'm using sit/down/hand touch/showbiz (2 front feet on bucket) and starboard (mvoe butt to the right.)

Notice how I mark and move that ball almost at the same time? I want him to not have any time to come around in front of me before getting the ball. There is a chance he will start concentrating too much on my right hand movements with this, and if I notice this, I will probably start holding the ball in my left hand or varying it.

Homework: work your way through the steps and show me if you are doing well, or if you run into issues.