Heel Struggles

[Stephanie Bowman]

Hi everyone!

We hired a trainer for our 15 week old pup a few weeks ago. We are working on the "heel" walking now, and Teddy is really having trouble understanding it. At first, we were having trouble with him going on walks at all, since he would cry every time it wasn't in our backyard and would jump on us so we could carry him. Now, he is confident in walking around our neighborhood but pulls a lot on the leash, sometimes even choking himself to the point of coughing. Our trainer insists it's good practice to have him walk on our left, right next to us, using the traditional leash only instead of a harness. Anyone experience a similar issue?

Read more here: http://www.doodlekisses.com/groups/group/show?groupUrl=trainingmind...

[Susan & Randy's Kate]

Our special collar sits high on the neck has a rounded zig zag design. It gives more control and doesn’t choke their neck.  Boxers are hard to control because of deep chest and strong neck. 

Also,they don’t care which side. Last night all the dogs were on the right. CGC requires loose leash but they can be in front of you. Dog training wants the dog to be at your side. 

[BG and Gavin]

Hi Stephanie,one more opinion to add to the confusion :)

On teaching heel:  Left is the “correct” side as you usually walk facing traffic and this position puts you in between the dog and the road. However lots of times you are walking on a sidewalk with traffic. So we learned to walk loose leash on both right and left, so that you could always put your dog on the side of safety.  Also a good way to begin to learn heel is with no leash at all. Practice in the house along a hallway with no distractions by holding a treat in the proper position.  Bonus this can be done several times a day with little effort..next you can take it to outside in the yard with more distraction and finally on leash and outside of the yard.

On the topic of collars:  I understand the choking thing from experience! The flat collar puts a great deal of force on the throat when the dog pulls. Flat collar walking is the goal to work toward for sure though. So in my experience I find that the prong collar and no pull harnesses etc tend to be effective at containing unwanted behaviour, but not very good for actually training the dog. I mean to train the dog you have to effectively communicate what is wanted and what is unwanted behaviour and in my philosophy this includes giving corrections: a quick little tug in the leash to redirect the dog.  I would never issue a correction with a prong collar (too tough) or the halter style contraption (it would crank the head down and back which sounds like a neck injury to me). So for me the best collar for training was a martinagale or half check collar (pic attached).  What I like about it is that it distributes the force around the neck instead of concentrating it on the windpipe. From this we were able to transition to a flat collar after lots of training.