Kat The Dog Trainer:
Hi, Kat with Standing Stone Kennels, and this is Rogue and we just got done camping over the 4th of July. And it was a good experience for Rogue, but also kind of exhausting for us because she really likes to pull on the lead. So that gave us a good indication that she is ready to start heeling using our easy lead, because she likes to, well, she's paying attention to bugs and stuff right now, but she really likes to pull and then work her way around your legs and get all tangled up and get herself all tangled up. Um, so we are about ready to be done with that. So we're going to use our easy lead to show you how we're going to help work her through that. Um, something else that I want to keep, um, at the forefront of your guys' attention is we've done some field work with Rogue already.
I don't like to put a lot of emphasis on heeling with a young puppy that doesn't have a lot of confidence in the field searching. You put too much emphasis on them having to stick right by your side for heeling. And then you start trying to go to the field and they don't feel as comfortable and competent going out and searching the field and finding birds. But as you've seen in some of Rogue's previous videos, she's definitely improving with her search, getting out, hunting, finding birds and not being real sticky and clingy with us. So we are going to be able to start with heeling then.
So first we're going to get the lead set up. I go under her head and then back up through this little ring that we've got here. And then once we've got a slip lead, that's clipped to her flat collar, we can get a little slack and put that up over her muzzle. So the biggest part of using this lead is getting them comfortable, having it up over their muzzle. So as she gets comfortable with that, I'm just going to give her a little bit of pressure when she fights until she relaxes.
We're not, we're not starting walking right away. We're trying to let her get comfortable with this first. A lot of dogs might try and paw it off of their nose, shake their head a little bit, and we just don't want her to get out of it. So we just put a little pressure up behind your ears and then this lead, um, we want to stay centered behind her ears like that. Good. She's like, this is different. So I'm going to be encouraging with her at first. She's kind of like, I'm not sure what to do with this. So we're going to help her take a few steps. And if she starts fighting, we'll just take a second to help her feel comfortable. Just taking a few baby steps, come on. Good. But most dogs settle in and feel comfortable with this and just a few minutes. So. Come on. When she's spinning around and fighting we're just gonna stop walking until she gives in and then start taking a few steps again. When she stops or sits down like that, we just need to help encourage her and get her moving again, moving her feet.
Changing some directions. Light tugs to keep her moving. Now it's also important that when she is walking by my side, not chewing on it, but walking by my side that she's not feeling constant pressure. Come on, come on. And that my hand drops down by my side so that she gets a little release on that pressure behind her ears and above her muzzle.And light tugs to keep her moving. Instead of constant pressure, she won't have something to fully dig in her feet and resist against. Good. We're already making a lot of progress, not fighting so much while she's at my side. She's not feeling the lead tighten up. Now, if she lunges out ahead, that lead is going to automatically tighten up on its own and be self-correcting. But then when she gets back into position, she's not feeling any pressure, which is important so that she can learn when she's heeling properly. She's not going to feel any of that pressure over her muzzle or behind her ears. So she's learning to turn that pressure off. She just needs to be in the right position.
If she starts to fight again, it tightens back up. You can make a few minor adjustments, make sure that that lead's still in position. It just takes really light pressure. You don't wear your arm out heeling and teaching dogs to heel this way. And keeping her focused, getting her attention in an encouraging manner helps. So she pulled ahead like that and she felt the leash tighten up until she's back in position. And then she doesn't feel any, any type of pressure there. Good girl. Give her a little attention. I'm going to show you how to put this back on again. Cause that's sometimes one of the most confusing and complicated parts of this whole process. Plus the more that she gets used to having the leash put on and off, the more comfortable she's going to get with that process.
When we're putting the lead on, we want to make sure that when we get the slip lead-in position, we go under her muzzle or under her head. And then we slide this, pinch the handle and slide it up through that ring. So then when we have our slip lead in place, it slips off the outside because when we're heeling, we're heeling on the left, she's like, I'm hot, I'm tired. So when it slips off the outside like that, when she tightens up and then we release there's automatic release on that tension. Now, if we were had it the other way and we're heeling on the right, it's not going to want to release as nicely. It's going to bind up. So once we get the slip lead in place, I can give myself a little slack, make a little twist, and then up over her muzzle like that.
And she's getting pretty comfortable with letting me put the lead in place, which is important. Good. So we're going to take a few more loops around the yard with her heeling. She's already staying in position, not fighting, and struggling with the lead. And we're only a few minutes into this session. If she gets distracted or is looking off in another direction, I try and redirect her focus with a few tugs and just snapping my fingers as a redirection. You can change directions by turning them. So you're using your body to help turn them. But as you can see, this is a huge improvement onto the simple clip style lead that we had started out with where she's jerking and pulling and tangling me up and tangling herself up. And we've made a lot of progress just in this first session. The really nice thing about this lead is that once Rogue gets proficient heeling with the lead up over her muzzle like this, which is going to take a little while. She's a puppy, this is her first session. We need to make sure that this is, um, really solid before we decide to switch to the next step. But this lead can go from over the muzzle, which gives us the most control to the slip style. Just taking it off their muzzle, and then eventually back to the clip style.
Now, when you're doing the slip style and your dog's heeling really nicely if you get into a high distraction situation, like a rabbit runs across the yard, or you're meeting somebody on the walk with another dog and you know that your dog is going to get a little more distracted, all you have to do is take a second on your walk, and slip that up over their muzzle. And then you've got that act- extra control. Then once you get out of that distracting situation, back into a slip style. And when your dog gets really good, back to the clip style lead. And then eventually this can transition to complete off lead collar condition to heel, which we're quite a ways from that with Miss Rogue. But she did great this morning. She's getting hot. So we're going to call that a great first session with her heeling. Remember to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and subscribe to us on YouTube for more puppy training videos. Thanks for reading!