July 23, 2024 • 18 mins
The Heel Command is one of the most important commands to master with your dog. The Dog Professor, Robb Lust from the Edgefield Animal Care Center, takes time in this podcast to teach you how to get your dog to comply.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
It's time for another episode of theDog Professor podcast. Rob lust In from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center and Rob, how are we doing? Brother?
Okay? You know anything going onbig in the world or no, no,
no. I I had a guywho runs a cluster of news radio
stations that send out an email onMonday that said, can maybe we have
(00:24):
a weekend that doesn't have a bunchof breaking Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's crazy. It is crazy,and we don't, we don't. We
probably shouldn't go down that ram.But we do want to talk about the
heel command today because, like youhad said, you know, we've done
a lot of episodes about a lotof different things and a lot of commands
and and uh you know, tryingto uh to do some training of of
(00:49):
your of your dogs, but theheel command one that can be very complicated.
Yeah, and you know, alot of people tune in to the
podcast because they go, I wantto learn how to do this. I'm
gonna teach my dog this or that. So what we can do today is
we're going to talk about the heelcommand and it's going to be it's going
to be as good as you canget, you know, people will get
(01:11):
go on YouTube and or watch atape or watch it, you know,
or watch a dog whisper or anyof that stuff and say, well,
maybe I'm going to recreate what he'sgoing to do and maybe that will help
me work. Maybe that'll work,And please please understand that, even though
we're going to talk about I'm goingto describe it as best I can,
that having working with a trainer andhaving that trainer in the room with you
(01:34):
to see what is going on atthat moment between you your dog and why
your dog is doing something or you'redoing something is basically invaluable that that doesn't
change. And that's what the differencebetween a lot of people over the years
coming in and saying, well,I watched all the videos and stuff and
I'm just having trouble with this,and in about ten seconds we have it
(01:55):
fixed because you have an eyeballs outsideyour circle watching what going on. So
while this gives you the ideas ofthe whys and the howls behind the heel
command, sometimes it still requires,you know, working with somebody to see
what's going on. But the heelcommand, when we train dogs and we
train people, we do it ina series of commands, and we do
(02:20):
it in a specific order because thisis the best way to build the foundation,
the stepping stones of getting to apoint where your dog listens to you,
getting to a point where your dogunderstands that you're basically the dark dog
in charge of this situation. Sothe heel command is key with that,
and it's usually the very first onewe teach, because you're not going to
teach any of the other commands ifyour dog is dragging you down the street
(02:44):
on the leash or anything else.So it's important to work on this heel
command, and a lot of bigparts about the heel command are this.
Everybody the first thing they want isthey don't want their dog to pull on
the leash, right, okay,And obviously your dog's going to pull on
the leash for a number of differentreasons we've talked about him before, but
the big, big rule in theirworld is that the dog infronts the dog
(03:07):
in charge, and they're willing tobe uncomfortable to the point of coughing,
hacking and wheezing and still pulling onthe leash because they want to be in
front and be in charge. Soit's important for you to train your brain
as the leader to take that role. Now you need to be that dog
in front. You need to bethat dog in charge. You're not going
(03:27):
to sit there and go, well, I hope he quits pulling on the
leash, or she pulls on theleak, quits pulling on the leash.
You're going to just say, allright, we're going to go. We're
going to go into battle, andI'm going to win this battle. So
how do we do that? Well, we talk about positioning. When I
teach a heel command, we teachit on the left hand side. We
teach the dog the spot to goto on our left hand side. Why
(03:50):
because, and everybody goes, well, I'm right handed, so I'd rather
have him on my right hand sideso I can use my strong hand.
Number one, when you have thatmindset, that is probably one of the
number one reasons you're in a lessonwith me is because you're trying to out
muscle your dog by using one hand. All right, we have put it
(04:12):
on the left hand side because themajority of the people are right handed,
and we want to give you everyphysical advantage that you can have when your
dog decides to fight. What we'redoing with this command. So we put
them on the left hand side,so that you can hold the end of
the leash in your right hand anduse your left hand along with your right
hand. Just as if you're holdinga baseball bat, and now you're using
(04:35):
your both arms, you're pulling acrossyour body instead of having your arm hanging
at your side. People who go, well, I want to put them
on the right so I can usemy right hand. Well, then what
they do is they grab the leashwith their right hand, they hold it
down at their side, and they'retrying to fight a dog with one arm
away from their body, not evenusing their body weight. Meanwhile, their
(04:58):
dog is throwing there in tire bodyweight into the leash to try to win.
So by having the dog on yourleft, holding the end of the
leash in your right hand, andyour left hand coming up to help your
right hand, both of them touchingtogether, Now what can happen And you
can try this at home. Holdyour hands close to your body, right
in your stomach, both hands closetogether like they're holding a baseball bat.
(05:23):
Let your dog go to the endof the leash. Now what you're gonna
do is you're gonna find out howstrong you can be, because when your
hands are close to your body,you're using all the leverage of your body
along with your hands, not justthe strength of your arm, shoulder,
and elbow. So when your dogshits the end of the leash, I
want you to do an about face. Immediately, do a one to eighty
turn around, keep your hands closeto your body, and start walking the
(05:46):
opposite way. What you will findwhen you do that and keep your hands
close is now the dog is comingwith you. Why because you are battling
the dog with your entire body weightnow, But the moment your hands go
away from your body, if youcan see light between your hands and your
body, then you're gonna lose theargument with your dog when it comes to
(06:09):
throwing body weight around. So thisis important. This technique is important,
and it's the one that we preachthe most. Now, your brain does
not like this technique, okay,because people do not walk holding their hands
in front of them unless they're likea monk or something like that. Okay,
people walk with their hands swinging attheir side. So your brain the
(06:30):
moment your hands start touching in fact, like you know, they teach you
when when you golf, when yougrip the club, you know, you
lock your bottom, your your onehand, pinky in with your thumb so
that your hands stay together. Youcan do that same thing with your hands
with the leash. Okay, Butwhat this does is is your brain starts
(06:51):
going haywire and says, well,you can't walk that way. You need
to spread your arms apart, spreadyour hands apart. So here's what happens
next is your left hand and willstart sliding down the leash to steer and
control the dog. And this isexactly what the dog wants. Because in
order to do this heel command,you have to number one, be able
(07:13):
to hold your own when the dogtries to throw their body weight around.
And number two, the hardest partis you actually have to be able for
a moment, if it's just amoment, to make that leash and collar
go loose. That's the heart partfor people, because again you will fight
with your brain in this case becausethe moment your dog pulls, you pull
that much harder. So here's howwe start. Every dog that comes to
(07:36):
me for the heel, here's howwe start. Immediately, we don't the
ultimate goal is to tell the dogto heal. And what that means to
your dog is that tells your dogget in your seat on my left hand
side. Imagine an imaginary box.That's where your dog's going to be.
That's their seat on the bus.Imagine a line that shoots right off your
(07:59):
lefe leg that's the battle line.That's the line your dog's going to try
to cross all the time. That'sthe line you're going to let them know
when they cross by responding or reactingone way or the other with a correction,
a change of direction, something likethat. The reason that line is
important to your dog is that themoment they get their nose and head across
(08:20):
that line, you cannot look yourdog in the eyes unless they turn and
decide to look at you. Andyour dog knows this because if you can
look them in the eyes and makeeye contact, that's what the controlling factor
is. When they're behind that line, it allows you to pivot and turn
and look them in the eyes.That means, in their world, you're
(08:41):
in that position of control. Soit's a six you're battling for six inches
of real estate in that case.So in the beginning, your dog will
just do what they normally do,which is just charge ahead and pull to
the end of the leash, andyou will do what you normally do,
which is try to hold them backand pull back on the leash. Not
this time. First thing you're goingto do, put the loop of the
(09:01):
leash on your right hand thumb.Okay, you're gonna close your fist around
the leash with hold with your thumbresting on your fist. You're gonna take
your left hand just like you're holdinga baseball back getting ready to hit,
and you're gonna put it up touchingyour right hand. You're gonna just let
the rest of the leash, therest of the leash be slack. You're
gonna put your hands, both handsdown by your belt buckle, right in
(09:24):
the center of your body. Andthe moment your dog charges ahead one direction,
like I said, you're gonna doa quick one eighty and start walking
back the other direction. Well,here comes your dog. Now that's not
right, So they here they come. They're running ahead of you. Now
soon as they go ahead of youagain, hands in the same place,
tucked in close to the body,do a right handed one eighty. When
(09:48):
you feel your dog hit the endof the leash kind of like fishing.
When you feel something hit the line, you're gonna tell them no, heal
right, when you feel that snap, you time the no at the They're
going to look at you and go, what's going on? You're going crazy.
We walk down the sidewalk, wewalk down the road. This is
what we do well, not today. So every time that dog crosses that
(10:11):
imaginary line off your left hand sidethat I just talked about, we're going
to change direction, go the oppositeway eventually. And this is where you
have to be more dedicated than yourdog. Okay, your dog's got all
day to do this, all right. They don't have other things to do.
You have other things to do,but you got to stick with this.
Eventually, what you're gonna find ifyou keep your hands in the same
(10:33):
spot in your body, all right, you're going to start to feel that
that leaf starts to slack up alittle bit because your dog will start to
pay attention and expect you to changedirection. So they start to back up.
They start to make the leaf slack. They started to realize that every
time they got out there at theend of that leash tight that you change
(10:56):
direction. They don't like to beout of control, so they start to
pay attention and look at you inthat case. In that case, as
long as they start walking beside you, your hands stay where they are,
the leash is slack. Things aregoing good. Okay, now we're getting
somewhere, all right, But thatis the step that takes me five minutes
(11:16):
as a professional. Owners have areal problem with it because it's a big
mental lap laps. They go backand doing what they normally do, which
is reel the dog in and allthat stuff. So once you start getting
that dog to start paying attention whereyou're going by that change of direction,
then we can start hurting them intothat position. Yeah. Okay, So
(11:41):
now I've got the dog walking withme, kind of hanging with me,
not charging ahead to the end ofthe leash, not charging the other direction.
They're kind of hanging beside me.Now I'd like to get their nose
behind that line on my left leg. How do I do that? Well,
I'm not going to hold them back. I'm not going to reel them
back with the leash and hold themin that position. Here's what I do.
(12:03):
The moment the dog drops behind thatline, I just keep walking straight
ahead the dog at this point isdictating whether I'm going to change direction in
my walk or not. Okay,So I'm watching as they stay behind there,
as they stay behind that line,their nose, not their eyes,
their nose. Okay, As theystay behind that line, I continue to
(12:26):
walk straight in the direction that I'mwalking. The second they start to go
ahead and that nose crosses that line, I'm gonna make a harsh one to
eighty degree turn to the left,the side the dog is on. I'm
going to take my right knee,and this is where people get weak in
the knee. Okay, I'm gonnatake my right knee and I'm gonna aim
(12:48):
at right for the dog's nose.Okay, why would I ever bang into
the dog changing direction, Because thisis what dogs do to you all day
long and to their friends in thehouse, to control what goes on.
They throw their bodies into you,they jump on you, they sit on
you, They use paws on youto make you move and respond. So
(13:11):
now this is you're just doing whatanother dog would do to this dog.
So I'm gonna make that harsh oneeighty degree turn to the left, and
again we're gonna have to fight ourbrain again, because your brain is gonna
say, do not run into thedog. You know why people end up
in the hospital. Yeah, okay, because they tripped over their dog because
they're afraid to do this. Allright, you're gonna turn, you're gonna
(13:35):
shuffle your feet close to the ground. You're gonna aim your right knee directly
for your dog's nose, and you'regonna make that one eighty turn and you're
going to make your dog move.Easiest way to practice this is walk on
a sidewalk. Yeah, okay,you're walking on the sidewalk, your dog
starts to go ahead of you.You do a left handed one hundred and
eighty degree turn, but your onlyrule is that you are not allowed to
(14:00):
leave the sidewalk. You will,but you're not allowed to, okay,
because your dog will stop and planttheir butt right on that sidewalk and defy
you to try to move them.Yeah okay. And your brain, the
human brain does not like collisions.So your brain says, walk around,
and that's what people do, andthat's why people don't do the heal.
(14:22):
Best way to train your brain isthat is your sidewalk. If you do
one hundred and eighty degree turnback andthey're in your way. You keep on
trucking until they move out of yourway or you drag them out of your
way, but you do not leavethe sidewalk. Ever. It takes five
minutes of being that type of abull, just like your dog does with
us. Yeah, okay, forthe dog to understand. Okay, now
(14:43):
you're finally learning the dog rules.Now you're finally somebody I need to listen
to. Now you are actually walkinglike a leader should, and maybe I'll
start responding to you. Okay.So these are all things we teach.
People think it's just about holding thedog back or saying no with a mean
voice or something like that. Theseare the things that your dog pays attention
(15:07):
to. So change of direction iswhat we'll teach your dog to heal,
not pulling back like you're rowing acanoe every time they run ahead, that
change of direction. If they jumpout too far ahead across that line to
where now they're so far ahead thatif you tried to turn left, you
would be going behind them. Andwe don't turn left, we go right.
Yeah okay. So this is somethingthat can be done in the yard
(15:31):
with your dog practicing, just toget you used to where your hands are.
Remember leash on the right hand,of the leash on the right hand,
or if your strong hand is yourleft hand, then put the dog
on your right side and let theend of the leash be on your left
hand with your right hand helping.But we want both hands helping, okay.
We want hands close to the bodyso that when I turn, you'll
(15:54):
feel it. It'll almost feel likeif you do a one to eighty or
an about face really fast. It'salmost like you're swinging the dog off the
ground with very little effort on yourpart because you're using anyone who's ever followed
judo, jiu jitsu, a keto, any of that stuff. You're using
their their momentum against them in thatcase, and that's what really throws them
(16:18):
off. You're not gonna hurt themthe dog's neck, like I said before,
it's like your thigh. Okay,But you have to teach them that
you're not going to play into thatgame that we've always done on the walk
that has made the walk such aterrible, terrible exercise. When we do
it. Wow, great stuff onceagain, simple but difficult. Yeah,
(16:40):
yeah, yeah, people look atit when I do that. It's like
magic, yeah, and I kindof like that, But I also want
you to understand that this is somethingyou can do at home and save yourself
or at least save yourself a lotof problems, because a lot of problems
down the road, you know,destruction, aggression, separation, anxiety,
(17:00):
a lot of those things can befixed by you just bucking up Buttercup a
little bit in the beginning and workingon this heel command. And if folks
need to learn that, you've gotthe trainers to do it at the Edgefield
Animal Care Exactly. Tell everybody howthey can hook up with you. When
your dog's at least sixteen weeks ofage oka four months old, they're old
(17:22):
enough to start a regular obedience training. So the easiest way to get started
on that with us the Edgefield AnimalCare Center is you can go right online
and look on our website Edgefield Animalcaredot com and you can go to the
training page. It'll tell you aboutscheduling a free evaluation with our trainers.
It'll tell you about the different programsthat we have available. And please understand
(17:45):
that when you come in, ninetyeight percent of it as you learning,
two percent as the dog learning,so that's the best way to find out
all that. Go to Edgefieldanimalcare dotcom good stuff, and of course if
you're just finding the Dog Professor podcast. Wherever you're finding a make sure you
hit follow so you get a notificationevery time we post a new one.
It's time for another episode of theDog Professor podcast. Rob lust In from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center and Rob, how are we doing? Brother?
Okay? You know anything going onbig in the world or no, no,
no. I I had a guywho runs a cluster of news radio
stations that send out an email onMonday that said, can maybe we have
(00:24):
a weekend that doesn't have a bunchof breaking Yeah, exactly, exactly.
That's crazy. It is crazy,and we don't, we don't. We
probably shouldn't go down that ram.But we do want to talk about the
heel command today because, like youhad said, you know, we've done
a lot of episodes about a lotof different things and a lot of commands
and and uh you know, tryingto uh to do some training of of
(00:49):
your of your dogs, but theheel command one that can be very complicated.
Yeah, and you know, alot of people tune in to the
podcast because they go, I wantto learn how to do this. I'm
gonna teach my dog this or that. So what we can do today is
we're going to talk about the heelcommand and it's going to be it's going
to be as good as you canget, you know, people will get
(01:11):
go on YouTube and or watch atape or watch it, you know,
or watch a dog whisper or anyof that stuff and say, well,
maybe I'm going to recreate what he'sgoing to do and maybe that will help
me work. Maybe that'll work,And please please understand that, even though
we're going to talk about I'm goingto describe it as best I can,
that having working with a trainer andhaving that trainer in the room with you
(01:34):
to see what is going on atthat moment between you your dog and why
your dog is doing something or you'redoing something is basically invaluable that that doesn't
change. And that's what the differencebetween a lot of people over the years
coming in and saying, well,I watched all the videos and stuff and
I'm just having trouble with this,and in about ten seconds we have it
(01:55):
fixed because you have an eyeballs outsideyour circle watching what going on. So
while this gives you the ideas ofthe whys and the howls behind the heel
command, sometimes it still requires,you know, working with somebody to see
what's going on. But the heelcommand, when we train dogs and we
train people, we do it ina series of commands, and we do
(02:20):
it in a specific order because thisis the best way to build the foundation,
the stepping stones of getting to apoint where your dog listens to you,
getting to a point where your dogunderstands that you're basically the dark dog
in charge of this situation. Sothe heel command is key with that,
and it's usually the very first onewe teach, because you're not going to
teach any of the other commands ifyour dog is dragging you down the street
(02:44):
on the leash or anything else.So it's important to work on this heel
command, and a lot of bigparts about the heel command are this.
Everybody the first thing they want isthey don't want their dog to pull on
the leash, right, okay,And obviously your dog's going to pull on
the leash for a number of differentreasons we've talked about him before, but
the big, big rule in theirworld is that the dog infronts the dog
(03:07):
in charge, and they're willing tobe uncomfortable to the point of coughing,
hacking and wheezing and still pulling onthe leash because they want to be in
front and be in charge. Soit's important for you to train your brain
as the leader to take that role. Now you need to be that dog
in front. You need to bethat dog in charge. You're not going
(03:27):
to sit there and go, well, I hope he quits pulling on the
leash, or she pulls on theleak, quits pulling on the leash.
You're going to just say, allright, we're going to go. We're
going to go into battle, andI'm going to win this battle. So
how do we do that? Well, we talk about positioning. When I
teach a heel command, we teachit on the left hand side. We
teach the dog the spot to goto on our left hand side. Why
(03:50):
because, and everybody goes, well, I'm right handed, so I'd rather
have him on my right hand sideso I can use my strong hand.
Number one, when you have thatmindset, that is probably one of the
number one reasons you're in a lessonwith me is because you're trying to out
muscle your dog by using one hand. All right, we have put it
(04:12):
on the left hand side because themajority of the people are right handed,
and we want to give you everyphysical advantage that you can have when your
dog decides to fight. What we'redoing with this command. So we put
them on the left hand side,so that you can hold the end of
the leash in your right hand anduse your left hand along with your right
hand. Just as if you're holdinga baseball bat, and now you're using
(04:35):
your both arms, you're pulling acrossyour body instead of having your arm hanging
at your side. People who go, well, I want to put them
on the right so I can usemy right hand. Well, then what
they do is they grab the leashwith their right hand, they hold it
down at their side, and they'retrying to fight a dog with one arm
away from their body, not evenusing their body weight. Meanwhile, their
(04:58):
dog is throwing there in tire bodyweight into the leash to try to win.
So by having the dog on yourleft, holding the end of the
leash in your right hand, andyour left hand coming up to help your
right hand, both of them touchingtogether, Now what can happen And you
can try this at home. Holdyour hands close to your body, right
in your stomach, both hands closetogether like they're holding a baseball bat.
(05:23):
Let your dog go to the endof the leash. Now what you're gonna
do is you're gonna find out howstrong you can be, because when your
hands are close to your body,you're using all the leverage of your body
along with your hands, not justthe strength of your arm, shoulder,
and elbow. So when your dogshits the end of the leash, I
want you to do an about face. Immediately, do a one to eighty
turn around, keep your hands closeto your body, and start walking the
(05:46):
opposite way. What you will findwhen you do that and keep your hands
close is now the dog is comingwith you. Why because you are battling
the dog with your entire body weightnow, But the moment your hands go
away from your body, if youcan see light between your hands and your
body, then you're gonna lose theargument with your dog when it comes to
(06:09):
throwing body weight around. So thisis important. This technique is important,
and it's the one that we preachthe most. Now, your brain does
not like this technique, okay,because people do not walk holding their hands
in front of them unless they're likea monk or something like that. Okay,
people walk with their hands swinging attheir side. So your brain the
(06:30):
moment your hands start touching in fact, like you know, they teach you
when when you golf, when yougrip the club, you know, you
lock your bottom, your your onehand, pinky in with your thumb so
that your hands stay together. Youcan do that same thing with your hands
with the leash. Okay, Butwhat this does is is your brain starts
(06:51):
going haywire and says, well,you can't walk that way. You need
to spread your arms apart, spreadyour hands apart. So here's what happens
next is your left hand and willstart sliding down the leash to steer and
control the dog. And this isexactly what the dog wants. Because in
order to do this heel command,you have to number one, be able
(07:13):
to hold your own when the dogtries to throw their body weight around.
And number two, the hardest partis you actually have to be able for
a moment, if it's just amoment, to make that leash and collar
go loose. That's the heart partfor people, because again you will fight
with your brain in this case becausethe moment your dog pulls, you pull
that much harder. So here's howwe start. Every dog that comes to
(07:36):
me for the heel, here's howwe start. Immediately, we don't the
ultimate goal is to tell the dogto heal. And what that means to
your dog is that tells your dogget in your seat on my left hand
side. Imagine an imaginary box.That's where your dog's going to be.
That's their seat on the bus.Imagine a line that shoots right off your
(07:59):
lefe leg that's the battle line.That's the line your dog's going to try
to cross all the time. That'sthe line you're going to let them know
when they cross by responding or reactingone way or the other with a correction,
a change of direction, something likethat. The reason that line is
important to your dog is that themoment they get their nose and head across
(08:20):
that line, you cannot look yourdog in the eyes unless they turn and
decide to look at you. Andyour dog knows this because if you can
look them in the eyes and makeeye contact, that's what the controlling factor
is. When they're behind that line, it allows you to pivot and turn
and look them in the eyes.That means, in their world, you're
(08:41):
in that position of control. Soit's a six you're battling for six inches
of real estate in that case.So in the beginning, your dog will
just do what they normally do,which is just charge ahead and pull to
the end of the leash, andyou will do what you normally do,
which is try to hold them backand pull back on the leash. Not
this time. First thing you're goingto do, put the loop of the
(09:01):
leash on your right hand thumb.Okay, you're gonna close your fist around
the leash with hold with your thumbresting on your fist. You're gonna take
your left hand just like you're holdinga baseball back getting ready to hit,
and you're gonna put it up touchingyour right hand. You're gonna just let
the rest of the leash, therest of the leash be slack. You're
gonna put your hands, both handsdown by your belt buckle, right in
(09:24):
the center of your body. Andthe moment your dog charges ahead one direction,
like I said, you're gonna doa quick one eighty and start walking
back the other direction. Well,here comes your dog. Now that's not
right, So they here they come. They're running ahead of you. Now
soon as they go ahead of youagain, hands in the same place,
tucked in close to the body,do a right handed one eighty. When
(09:48):
you feel your dog hit the endof the leash kind of like fishing.
When you feel something hit the line, you're gonna tell them no, heal
right, when you feel that snap, you time the no at the They're
going to look at you and go, what's going on? You're going crazy.
We walk down the sidewalk, wewalk down the road. This is
what we do well, not today. So every time that dog crosses that
(10:11):
imaginary line off your left hand sidethat I just talked about, we're going
to change direction, go the oppositeway eventually. And this is where you
have to be more dedicated than yourdog. Okay, your dog's got all
day to do this, all right. They don't have other things to do.
You have other things to do,but you got to stick with this.
Eventually, what you're gonna find ifyou keep your hands in the same
(10:33):
spot in your body, all right, you're going to start to feel that
that leaf starts to slack up alittle bit because your dog will start to
pay attention and expect you to changedirection. So they start to back up.
They start to make the leaf slack. They started to realize that every
time they got out there at theend of that leash tight that you change
(10:56):
direction. They don't like to beout of control, so they start to
pay attention and look at you inthat case. In that case, as
long as they start walking beside you, your hands stay where they are,
the leash is slack. Things aregoing good. Okay, now we're getting
somewhere, all right, But thatis the step that takes me five minutes
(11:16):
as a professional. Owners have areal problem with it because it's a big
mental lap laps. They go backand doing what they normally do, which
is reel the dog in and allthat stuff. So once you start getting
that dog to start paying attention whereyou're going by that change of direction,
then we can start hurting them intothat position. Yeah. Okay, So
(11:41):
now I've got the dog walking withme, kind of hanging with me,
not charging ahead to the end ofthe leash, not charging the other direction.
They're kind of hanging beside me.Now I'd like to get their nose
behind that line on my left leg. How do I do that? Well,
I'm not going to hold them back. I'm not going to reel them
back with the leash and hold themin that position. Here's what I do.
(12:03):
The moment the dog drops behind thatline, I just keep walking straight
ahead the dog at this point isdictating whether I'm going to change direction in
my walk or not. Okay,So I'm watching as they stay behind there,
as they stay behind that line,their nose, not their eyes,
their nose. Okay, As theystay behind that line, I continue to
(12:26):
walk straight in the direction that I'mwalking. The second they start to go
ahead and that nose crosses that line, I'm gonna make a harsh one to
eighty degree turn to the left,the side the dog is on. I'm
going to take my right knee,and this is where people get weak in
the knee. Okay, I'm gonnatake my right knee and I'm gonna aim
(12:48):
at right for the dog's nose.Okay, why would I ever bang into
the dog changing direction, Because thisis what dogs do to you all day
long and to their friends in thehouse, to control what goes on.
They throw their bodies into you,they jump on you, they sit on
you, They use paws on youto make you move and respond. So
(13:11):
now this is you're just doing whatanother dog would do to this dog.
So I'm gonna make that harsh oneeighty degree turn to the left, and
again we're gonna have to fight ourbrain again, because your brain is gonna
say, do not run into thedog. You know why people end up
in the hospital. Yeah, okay, because they tripped over their dog because
they're afraid to do this. Allright, you're gonna turn, you're gonna
(13:35):
shuffle your feet close to the ground. You're gonna aim your right knee directly
for your dog's nose, and you'regonna make that one eighty turn and you're
going to make your dog move.Easiest way to practice this is walk on
a sidewalk. Yeah, okay,you're walking on the sidewalk, your dog
starts to go ahead of you.You do a left handed one hundred and
eighty degree turn, but your onlyrule is that you are not allowed to
(14:00):
leave the sidewalk. You will,but you're not allowed to, okay,
because your dog will stop and planttheir butt right on that sidewalk and defy
you to try to move them.Yeah okay. And your brain, the
human brain does not like collisions.So your brain says, walk around,
and that's what people do, andthat's why people don't do the heal.
(14:22):
Best way to train your brain isthat is your sidewalk. If you do
one hundred and eighty degree turnback andthey're in your way. You keep on
trucking until they move out of yourway or you drag them out of your
way, but you do not leavethe sidewalk. Ever. It takes five
minutes of being that type of abull, just like your dog does with
us. Yeah, okay, forthe dog to understand. Okay, now
(14:43):
you're finally learning the dog rules.Now you're finally somebody I need to listen
to. Now you are actually walkinglike a leader should, and maybe I'll
start responding to you. Okay.So these are all things we teach.
People think it's just about holding thedog back or saying no with a mean
voice or something like that. Theseare the things that your dog pays attention
(15:07):
to. So change of direction iswhat we'll teach your dog to heal,
not pulling back like you're rowing acanoe every time they run ahead, that
change of direction. If they jumpout too far ahead across that line to
where now they're so far ahead thatif you tried to turn left, you
would be going behind them. Andwe don't turn left, we go right.
Yeah okay. So this is somethingthat can be done in the yard
(15:31):
with your dog practicing, just toget you used to where your hands are.
Remember leash on the right hand,of the leash on the right hand,
or if your strong hand is yourleft hand, then put the dog
on your right side and let theend of the leash be on your left
hand with your right hand helping.But we want both hands helping, okay.
We want hands close to the bodyso that when I turn, you'll
(15:54):
feel it. It'll almost feel likeif you do a one to eighty or
an about face really fast. It'salmost like you're swinging the dog off the
ground with very little effort on yourpart because you're using anyone who's ever followed
judo, jiu jitsu, a keto, any of that stuff. You're using
their their momentum against them in thatcase, and that's what really throws them
(16:18):
off. You're not gonna hurt themthe dog's neck, like I said before,
it's like your thigh. Okay,But you have to teach them that
you're not going to play into thatgame that we've always done on the walk
that has made the walk such aterrible, terrible exercise. When we do
it. Wow, great stuff onceagain, simple but difficult. Yeah,
(16:40):
yeah, yeah, people look atit when I do that. It's like
magic, yeah, and I kindof like that, But I also want
you to understand that this is somethingyou can do at home and save yourself
or at least save yourself a lotof problems, because a lot of problems
down the road, you know,destruction, aggression, separation, anxiety,
(17:00):
a lot of those things can befixed by you just bucking up Buttercup a
little bit in the beginning and workingon this heel command. And if folks
need to learn that, you've gotthe trainers to do it at the Edgefield
Animal Care Exactly. Tell everybody howthey can hook up with you. When
your dog's at least sixteen weeks ofage oka four months old, they're old
(17:22):
enough to start a regular obedience training. So the easiest way to get started
on that with us the Edgefield AnimalCare Center is you can go right online
and look on our website Edgefield Animalcaredot com and you can go to the
training page. It'll tell you aboutscheduling a free evaluation with our trainers.
It'll tell you about the different programsthat we have available. And please understand
(17:45):
that when you come in, ninetyeight percent of it as you learning,
two percent as the dog learning,so that's the best way to find out
all that. Go to Edgefieldanimalcare dotcom good stuff, and of course if
you're just finding the Dog Professor podcast. Wherever you're finding a make sure you
hit follow so you get a notificationevery time we post a new one.
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