Difference Between Heel & Loose Lead?

[Cazza]

I've been searching here on "walking on loose lead" and quite often the phrase "this is not the same as heeling" comes up. What does "heel" mean?

[Cheyenne_Fury]

Hi Cazza,

The "heel" position is to have your dog on your left side, right at your hip and for the dog to walk in this position with you is "heeling" walking on a loose lead usually means the dog does not have to walk by your side, but is allowed to go to the end of the lead without placing any tension on the lead.

Hope this helps

Anne

[Staranais]

Heel is a position - it means the dog walks at your left side, with his neck approximately even with your leg. Walking a dog in heel means he stays in that position as you are walking along. Heeling properly is quite hard work for the dog.

Walking on a loose lead just means the dog doesn't pull on the end of the lead.

ETA: Ooops sorry Cheyenne, think we crossposted.

Edited November 8, 2005 by Amhailte

[Cazza]

Thanks for the fast replies!

[MissMonaro]

Well just to throw a spanner in the works........when we do heel work at obedience

when your dog is in the heel position the lead should be loose.......many ppl starting out with heel have the lead tight to keep the dog in position (this is wrong), but the object is the dog should be in the heel position at all times without the lead being pulled tight - hence "loose lead".

[MissMonaro]

*double post*

Edited November 9, 2005 by MissMonaro

[Cheyenne_Fury]

No worries Amhailte

Miss Monaro is exactly right

Anne

[Rusky]

how interesting that this has just come up, I was just thinking about it. A guy said to me I want my dog to heel. I said first it needs to walk on a loose lead without pulling, he said he didn't want to learn that

You can teach heel without a lead, some people do, they find the position is easier to find off lead then to attach the lead and teach heel on lead.

[Guest Tess32]

I'm actually reading a book just now by a very successful obedience trialler and she teaches the heel beginning with a tense lead.

I was actually going to start a post on heeling, as the LAST book I read teaches the heel offlead.

Two extremes - so what do people do?

Nat

[Erny]

I usually start "on leash" .... with loose lead walking first. As part of the loose lead walk training, my highest praise generally comes whenever the dog is at my left leg. No "heel" command at that point. Just merely builds up in the dog that the REALLY good stuff comes when he's at the left leg. When the dog's doing well at loose lead walking, I shorten my leash (no tension) and transfer the exercise into "heel" work.

[kelpiecuddles]

Trying to think back to how I taught Sascha, I think I was halfway between. We used a lead but it was left loose and only used to gently put her back in postiion with the command heel if she didn't move back by her self on cammand.

Cazza, Sascha knows two commands, heel means the obvious and the command free means that she is allowed to wander around when off lead or wander to the extent of the lead when on lead, I find this works well for us

[Staranais]

I have only taught my own dog to attention heel (I've taught a few more looseleash walking, but I feel that's a totally different skill), so I can only say what worked for one dog.

I chose to teach it offleash for a couple of reasons. Primarily, it was because I wanted a happy, animated heel, with my dog's full attention. I figured that if I needed to use a leash to keep his attention on me then things were going seriously wrong with our foundation anyway. In other words if I had to physically restrain him from running off during the teaching stage, then I figured that the real problem wasn't lack of a leash it was lack of motivation.

I liked teaching him without a leash, because I could tell when he fully understood what I was showing him, since he didn't recieve any physical guidance to stay in heel position.

I also figured that if my dog learned to do if offleash, it would be easy to add a leash if I wanted one. I think it would be trickier to remove a leash than to add one.

As I say I have limited experience at this - but it's worked well for us. His heel is lovely IMO, and we're now starting to add distractions and more complicated turns.

*Edited for clarity and spelling!*

Edited November 9, 2005 by Amhailte

[Guest Tess32]

The one thing I find hard with teaching offleash heeling is that it's hard to find an area in the beginning that will be distraction free and so you could end up inadvertedly allowing the dog to lose attention because a distraction he's not ready for comes up.

How do people deal with that?

Nat

[Staranais]

We practiced in a very obscure corner of our local park - people hardly ever go there. I had him drag a short leash so that if someone did come, I could easily step on it and stop him from going to them. On the few occasions that other people did turn up, I just stopped heeling him and waited for the people to leave before continuing the heeling lesson, since he wasn't ready for the distraction.

I kept our training sessions really short, and I rewarded him really well for each little "baby step" he made, so he stayed pretty motivated about the whole idea. We used his favourite chase toy for a motivator - he soon worked out that heeling was a chance to earn his toy.

Tess, can you give a summary of the "taut lead" way to teach heeling? I've never heard of it before, and would be interested to hear how it works &/or what advantages it might have.

[kelpiecuddles]

I agree Nat, this is why I used a loose leash. As long as Sascha performed the heel properly then it wasn't used at all essentially. But a distracted pup can be hard to keep in position especially if like me you have two dogs and have dificulty even training distraction free in your own backyard

[kelpiecuddles]

I agree Nat, this is why I used a loose leash. As long as Sascha performed the heel properly then it wasn't used at all essentially. But a distracted pup can be hard to keep in position especially if like me you have two dogs and have dificulty even training distraction free in your own backyard

We don't train on leash at all anymore other than at the club as they won't allow you to train off leash in the classes.

[pgm]

How do people deal with that?

Depending on how you teach and assuming your dog is heeling well on lead this is how I do it. I have a very light piece of rope attached to my belt which I run through his collar. I then attached the normal six foot lead and do a couple of minutes heeling on lead to get his attention. Once he is working well I then remove the leash making sure he sees me doing it and then it throw away - once again, making sure he sees me doing this. Then I say heel and continue on - if you are lucky he will have forgotten about the extra piece of rope attached and lose concentration. He will then get caught by surprise. Keep doing this gradually increasing the distraction until you can no longer catch him out or fool him.

Catching him by surprise is what helps to increase his concentration and focus.

Of course, there are other ways to do it - I think it depends a lot on what you have done before and you usual method of training.

[MissMonaro]

Just to add........at my club all heeling is done on lead. As you graduate and learn stuff.....eventually you can drop the lead on the stay commands (but this is only allowed when the dog is stable).

When the dog is stable and not likely to take the bolt etc...we use a "cheat lead". Its a light weighted piece of cord attached to a piece of conduit (so if the dog does run for any reason you wont get rope burn). Anyway as its lighter than a lead, the dog thinks its offlead but you can still correct if need be.

One you get to the top class then we do exercises of group off lead heeling and group recall exercises etc.

Problem being is that when you are doing offlead heeling your dog needs to be focused otherwise you'll turn a corner and your dog will be off with the pixies. Plus I wouldnt be doing offlead for dogs that are unstable as you have no way to correct the dog and put it in the right place if you dont have the leash attached.

Just IMO anyway.

[haven]

I use a lead for safety, so the dog doesn't 'run off with the pixies' like MM said.

The lead is not there to keep the dog by your side, that's your job by using focus, motivation and teaching your dog that good things happen when they are in the heel position.

[Guest Tess32]

Tess, can you give a summary of the "taut lead" way to teach heeling? I've never heard of it before, and would be interested to hear how it works &/or what advantages it might have.

It's actually basically two books of heeling, and I've only read the first, but I'll try to explain the first bit.

Basically she begins to teach heel (after you're meant to spend a few weeks doing foundation attention work) by having the dog sit, standing next to him in heel position and sliding food down from her mouth to the dog slowly. She keeps the dog's head up (she's very very big on having the dog always look up at you whilst heeling) during the exercise.

She uses a prong collar to teach heel but does not use the prong most of the time to correct, she appears to want you to pop very gently but as a "hey, over here" kinda thing.

I'm finding the whole book quite weird actually, but can't really say much until I finish them.

The steps are incredibly detailed though, I'll give her that much!

Nat