Heeling with focus.
It’s like one of those bad breakup lines but, in this case, it’s true! 😉 While I do still believe Risa’s occasional lack of focus while heeling has its roots in her hypervigilance and fear, I recently realized that it’s also my fault. I reward her for losing focus all the time. It’s just that, until a week ago, I didn’t even notice that I was doing it. (THIS is a perfect example of why it’s vital to have a knowledgeable someone watching you train. They will catch these mistakes before you make bad habits out of them.) Once I stepped back and thought about it, however, I knew I’d been doing this all along. Even if Risa looks away while heeling, I still choose to reward her. Even if I have to keep moving and wait for her to look back or, even worse, call her back to attention.
Exactly what I want. And, now that I've realized my error, I can hopefully start to get it more often!
At this point, I should know better! I mean, I just talked about how I utilize what Kathy Sdao taught me about stopping if your dog misses/misinterprets a cue. Yet I’ve never actually applied it when we’re working on heelwork. Even though my goal is to have eye contact part of the final heeling picture, I am doing a poor job attaining it. When I cue “fu
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