Thoughts on Heeling

As I start the process of teaching Tor heeling there are many things running through my mind - training principles, mechanics, and previous things that I have learned.

It all starts with a few observations about the differences between Gata and Tor and identifying what I want the final picture to look like.  Essentially, I want Tor to heel like Gata - head up, prancing, intense, powerful.  Gata looks graceful when she is heeling but not in a refined, elegant way; it's in a more powerful, barely contained, get out of her way she's going to explode at any second fashion.  That's what I would like from Tor, too.  However, he is a very different dog than Gata.  He does not move the same way that Gata does to start with.  He is lighter on his feet than she is and at the same time more firmly rooted to the ground than her.  Though he is a very powerful dog, I don't see it in his movement the same way that I do in Gata's.  He stalks me much more than any dog ever has before.  And if I am entirely honest, I don't really like the look of dogs that do the stalking heel.  I don't dislike it, but I prefer that the dog move more freely in heel.

Also, Gata was heeling as well as most dogs ever do at about the age that I got Tor.  So she learned to heel when she was physically small and essentially had to trot and keep her head up just to keep up with me.  As she got bigger and her stride lengthened she had to slow to maintain her position and that essentially turned into her "prance".  She already had developed the muscle memory that dictated that heeling is done at a trot so it never occurred to her to do a flat-footed walk to heel.  Tor is already 7 months old and the mechanics that he learns will be much different than the they were for Gata.  He does not need to trot to keep up with me at a "normal" pace.

So then I think the biggest issue is how to start?  Should I start with movement or with position?  I'm afraid that I won't be able to capture the movement with Tor due to his tendency to go into stalk mode, which I don't want.  So, I think it makes most sense with him to start with position.  Maybe even to the extreme - reward for a perfect basic position, then 1 step, 2 steps, etc.  Then as he gains confidence in the position add speed and movement and hope to add in the power and prancing that I like.

There is no question that he has the physique to do the prancing.  He does it all the time when he is playing.  So if necessary, I could almost train the position and movement separately and then combine them.

We'll see how it goes ...