Walking TWO or More Dogs in A HEEL--The Beginnings of Harmony

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

The beginnings.   Yes folks, it is possible to have your dog NOT pull your arm off and drag you down road!  You can even do it with more than one dog at a time, in a heel, or your left.

We are BEGINNING.   This is not a pretty video.  I am posting it because this was my homework for the month and I do not have a better example on film.  I promised Jane I would have this done, but the filming was ugly.  But we have done better than this and we are amazed at how much we ALL enjoy our walks.

So Jane, as promised, here is our beginning of walking two dogs, in a heel, on the left.  Ugly, not perfect but just an example of what we all can achieve. 

Say Yes to Training.  Enjoy and Bond   :)






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[Joanne ~ Spud*]

This has to be the worst example. Starlit always thinks the sky is falling and Spud is a twit. But if you would have seen us 4 months ago you would have been ashamed of me.

Spud was walked only with a gentle leader. Once removed he was a maniac. Starlit would have been doing a bomb shelter crawl down the street, shaking and cowering, Spud jumping and barking.... ahhh what a mess.

As you can see, they are still doing this and that. A lot of this was major distraction going on that day. People moving next door with trucks and for some reason, MOM was not joining the walk... they knew things were NOT right. But as I said, I promised. Here you are Jane

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You are much too modest. I think this is very impressive, as you said, it's a beginning. Both dogs seemed calm and focused. I would give you an "A" on your homework.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Karen, coming from you that means a lot to me :) Thank you. We have all worked very hard. We have all enjoyed learning and our accomplishments.

[Julie, Izzie & Max]

They look like they are doing great. We still have to use an Easy Walk Harness on Izzie or she pulls you to death. I hope we will be able to get ours to walk that well together. You are doing a great job with your training.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Fantastic job, Joanne. Nice to see two that aren't either old or small do so well together. We could walk our old guy and Ned on the left and another dog on the right which made three, however, that third dog - whether Clancy or Gordie, always pulls. Somehow we were able to train two dogs to walk and somehow we didn't do so well with the other two.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Spud still pulls or tries to pull ahead. He has to be a foot ahead of her. You can kind of see
this beginning in this video.

He has to be on the inside also. I would like variety. Both dogs should be able to switch from the inside /outside and still be able to walk in a heel. Spud somehow always gets on the inside.

[Adina P]

Heeling two dogs is a challenge. Each dog by this point knows heel to mean a certain proximity to YOU, the handler. So even if they know that really well...I would imagine it's not 'easy' for the dog to feel comfortable suddenly being told to 'heel' with this. I need to ask my training mentor how she walks two dogs together. We have done it with success...but it always seemed slightly unfair (but not really because they did fine) to call it "heel" when one of the dogs is way far from you. It's confusing for ME to think about!

Thule was always a better heeler than Rosco. BUT...because being told to heel while on the outside of another dog confused the heck out of her. She wanted to get back into 'correct' position so she would also forge ahead of the inside dog and sort of crowd that dog to get nearer to whoever was walking her. So she was always put on the inside as I really didn't know what to DO with her on the outside. Thule walked on the inside...and Rosco and Cass walked in a variety of ways to Thule's left. I have not yet attempted to heel Boca and Rosco as ALL of Boca's outings are trainings for HER alone and she's not quite ready to walk in tandem with Rosco. I'm pretty sure she would NOT pull ... but her heel would break down quickly.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Heeling two dogs is a challenge. Each dog by this point knows heel to mean a certain proximity to YOU, the handler. So even if they know that really well...I would imagine it's not 'easy' for the dog to feel comfortable suddenly being told to 'heel' with this.

YES! They were both just totally confused. Still are at the beginning. It is not always a pretty sight the first block but we settle in. Spud gets way to close. Is he giving her room? I have no idea. But... we are forming some routines. We are learning from each other to be a UNIT :) A totally different concept from walking just one dog.

As for the heel command .... maybe another command term would be better served here. Call it whatever you want...just not heel.

[Adina P]

I'm curious, did your trainer ever address heeling two dogs together? I'm curious. I have no idea what the answer is. I just emailed my training mentor to get her thoughts.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

No. We did not cover this :(

I never thought to ask either. I basically just started concentrating on this since training. We will not be going back until Spring session for Advanced Obedience. I felt we had a lot of work to do before we took an advanced class--outside--off leash with these two dogs.

[Adina P]

So I emailed my training mentor about walking more than one dog in heel. She says she didn't do any special training for it but simply went ahead and did it with hers once they were each quite solid in their heeling and didn't need ,uch correcting. She first would say one dog's name and "heel" followed by the other dog's name and "heel" and later she would just say "heel" on its own. She has a leash in each hand so she can correct bad sits individually.

She did say that she prefers her largest dog on the inside because it's natural for the outside dog to want to press in and since she has an airedale, a pit bull, and a sheltie (small)...the Sheltie is always on the outside so she doesn't feel squashed.

I was also reminded that there is a whole obedience area called "Brace" where two dogs work in tandem. I found a cute video of an 11 y.o. doing some off leash heeling with his two Brittany spaniels:


And another one more formal but with some oops:

And since I was searching Google...another:

[Carol Brand]

In the Brittany video is the speaker buzzing the dogs with e-collars? Is she remotely handling? Also, this is a good example of how the handler should be trained separately from the dogs. Those dogs are trying hard, but the kid really has no idea what he is doing (turning wrong way etc). I don't think it is fair to the dogs.