Natural Positional Cues In Heeling

[DogsAndTheMob]

What natural cues do you think your dog uses to anticipate your movements and adjust its position when heeling? By natural cues, I mean cues in the way you naturally move (e.g. turning your feet left or right as you lead into a turn; slowing/shortening your step to adjust your balance as you stop).

I'm particularly interested in cues that dogs pick up on when they're looking upwards. I spent some time last week teaching my youngster both stand and left about turn, and now I notice that he's switched from watching my face to watching my feet during heeling.

[Kavik]

In agility dogs pick up on shoulder cues for turning, and I notice when I do chase games that my posture and shoulder position also gives cues for acceleration/deceleration. I think this could be applied to heeling.

[DogsAndTheMob]

In agility dogs pick up on shoulder cues for turning, and I notice when I do chase games that my posture and shoulder position also gives cues for acceleration/deceleration. I think this could be applied to heeling.

So perhaps I should be playing more chasing and retrieving games with quick turns (e.g. turn and throw a ball) so that he becomes more attuned to my shoulder movements.

[Podengo]

I think I drop my left shoulder a bit when I am going to turn left and Elsie picks up on that... Do it when I look behind me to talk to someone and wonder why my dog pivoted behind me :laugh:

[Luke W]

I drop my shoulder and start to turn my head a fraction before I begin the turn.

[wuffles]

Mine looks up but she pays attention to the whole picture... shoulders, legs, feet, face, hands. It's very easy to confuse her if you get one part of the "picture" wrong... for example if I tell her to stay but step off with my left foot, she will step off with me but be completely confused about whether she's doing the right thing. When stepping off from a halt, if I don't time my signal/command properly she will anticipate just with the tiny shift of my weight forwards.

This is my girl's natural heeling style, if she looks ahead she gets too distracted (she doesn't heel super close in general but does look up). IMO you should work with your dog's natural style if possible. Figures of eight are really good for getting your dog to follow your shoulders (I start off training this with really exaggerated shoulder movements and changing speeds).

Oh, and just wanted to add that if you exaggerate shoulder drops or turns of the head in trials many judges will take marks off.

Edited April 28, 2012 by wuffles