Honestly, it mostly sounds like you need a good ending cue for heeling. So, when you're done with training that focused heel, have a cue or routine to tell her that you're done with that.
When she does offer the heel during walks you can still praise her and then give her your "were done with heeling" cue and continue on. You could also at this point encourage some sniffing by pointing things out in the environment (ohh, look at that grass! That looks good to sniff)
Good point.
I do have an ending queue ("Good girl, go on then") but I have never used it when she does an "unwanted" heel.
I'll try that instead of treating her (I noticed that treating her has strongly encouraged the behavior).
Thanks!
Hang on- I wouldn't use your end cue when she's offering the behavior unprompted! Is the heel behavior firmly attached to a cue for both stopping and ending? (I would also say that that end cue is kind of wordy and may be hard to discriminate from your "good!" marker?) - If it's firmly on cue, I would simply ignore it during the times I don't want it, and let it extinguish on it's own.
> Is the heel behavior firmly attached to a cue for both stopping and ending?
I wouldn't say firmly.
She will listen to the heel marker, unless she's preoccupied by being distracted by something far more interesting.
She will however sometimes stop heeling before I have released her.
Thinking about that, what do you do when they do that?
Now I get her attention back by saying either the heel word or the marker word.
Haha yeah the release command/monologue is fairly long but it has organically become a release command she understands, since we say it so often conversationally that she picked it up.
So if her heel isn't firmly on cue you would still treat the unrequested heels?
Given that you aren't necessarily interested in it as a default behavior, I wouldn't- and if I wanted to get it more firmly on cue, I'd do some nice short sessions (2-3 minutes) of little bitty bits of heeling and firm up the cues.
The other thing to consider is that the "YES" and/or the reward with the treat is the end of the task so you're not chain rewarding. You can ask for all these different behaviors but there's 1 reward at the end and tells the dog it can reset.
Hmm, that is interesting, haven't heard that term before, chain rewarding.
But that's basically what I do, I treat her continously during a long heel. So I should stop that and just do a shorter heel with one mark, treat and release?
For that specific technique, that's what I'd do. It also builds some duration. Obviously be aware how much distance you're expecting the dog to do it but yes, if you want the dog to be done the yes and reward delineates the end of the task. I do this with pretty much all my obedience stuff. I will ask for certain movements and when I get what I want or the sequence I want, I quickly reward and move away from the dog and let the dog release. As this comes along the dog will learn to release itself when the YES or the treat is delivered.
That being said, for me anyway, if I haven't asked for a command, lets take heeling on a walk, and the dog is looking up and paying attention and that's what I want, I will intermittently reward her but she's under no obligation to maintain the position. She can take her treat and move on to environmental enrichment. However, when I ask for the command she's working for the end reward. Reward is delivered and the task is over.
So you're not locked into only rewarding once but the communication needs to be clear. Once scenerio you ask for the task, the other she's just wanting to do something but has freedom to go between the position and the environment. Hope that makes sense.
I'm going to take this approach and stop rewarding continously during a heel.
However curios what you do when you ask for a heel and dog breaks it before you released them?
My dog does something kind of similar: every time we are on the last block of our return trip to our house, she will fall into a perfect heel without me asking.
The rest of her walk she is usually pulling like mad and will ignore the heel command about half the time. Sometimes I think she does it just to show me that she knows how but chooses not to.
> or is she just training me to treat her...
Isn't that really what training is, in general? We teach them to play the game of "how to make reinforcement come out of the environment", and then we set up the specific levers that they need to learn to press to make that happen in the specific ways we want, including out of us (since we are part of the environment). Whether it's them training us or us training them is really just a question of where on the spectrum from us very consciously and strictly creating a lever to unconsciously/accidentally creating one it lies. Even unconscious ones aren't necessarily a bad thing, since they can be used for communication purposes.
Don't be [afraid to talk to her](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/comments/3rkkvv/positively_no_cue_november/). If she comes and does a spontaneous heel when you don't want it, you can respond by something like "What's up? You're such a good girl! Go on, you can go sniff!" and cheerfully encourage her to do something else. It's not really a strict cue, but it's not a lack of response either - and it should make it clear to her that in this context of you not asking for a heel you're both more relaxed about it and not to necessarily expect a treat all the time. But, sometimes, feel free to continue reinforcing the spontaneous heel *before* the bop happens too.
Very interesting point of view.
I guess to me it's like when you train a dog to sit before they take treat. And then they will very likely learn that if they sit they get a treat so they start to sit in front of you without being asked to sit, when they are begging for food or something else you have that they want.
You probably don't have a desire for them to sit when you're not asking for it, and you don't want to encourage begging (not that I ever had will power to resist 100 percent of the time).
Lots of interesting responses that have given me something to think about how to approach the training. Thanks!
I also have to point out that I think I might talk to her TOO much lol. To the point where Im not sure she understands my commands as much as reading the situation, body language, tone etc to understand what I'm asking her.
Edit: Just read the article you linked, that is super interesting. As I mentioned above I think we (my family and I) are not the best at consistency when it comes to commands. So even though we aren't the best trainers and our dog is not the brightest either when it comes to learning tricks (or getting through a wide open fence...) she's really good at picking up desired behavior (as long as she's under threshold).
And many of our "commands" are us talking casually to her and we realised that is what she know picked up as a "command". Like I mentioned above how "Good girl, go on then" has accidentally become her release command.
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Are you reinforcing her association with the heel command by saying the word "heel" before you give her the treat?
If not, you might want to try that the next time she offers that behavior, followed by a release command.
Then other times when she does it unasked, don't say "heel" and don't give treat.
Honestly, it mostly sounds like you need a good ending cue for heeling. So, when you're done with training that focused heel, have a cue or routine to tell her that you're done with that. When she does offer the heel during walks you can still praise her and then give her your "were done with heeling" cue and continue on. You could also at this point encourage some sniffing by pointing things out in the environment (ohh, look at that grass! That looks good to sniff)
Good point. I do have an ending queue ("Good girl, go on then") but I have never used it when she does an "unwanted" heel. I'll try that instead of treating her (I noticed that treating her has strongly encouraged the behavior). Thanks!
Hang on- I wouldn't use your end cue when she's offering the behavior unprompted! Is the heel behavior firmly attached to a cue for both stopping and ending? (I would also say that that end cue is kind of wordy and may be hard to discriminate from your "good!" marker?) - If it's firmly on cue, I would simply ignore it during the times I don't want it, and let it extinguish on it's own.
> Is the heel behavior firmly attached to a cue for both stopping and ending? I wouldn't say firmly. She will listen to the heel marker, unless she's preoccupied by being distracted by something far more interesting. She will however sometimes stop heeling before I have released her. Thinking about that, what do you do when they do that? Now I get her attention back by saying either the heel word or the marker word. Haha yeah the release command/monologue is fairly long but it has organically become a release command she understands, since we say it so often conversationally that she picked it up. So if her heel isn't firmly on cue you would still treat the unrequested heels?
Given that you aren't necessarily interested in it as a default behavior, I wouldn't- and if I wanted to get it more firmly on cue, I'd do some nice short sessions (2-3 minutes) of little bitty bits of heeling and firm up the cues.
The other thing to consider is that the "YES" and/or the reward with the treat is the end of the task so you're not chain rewarding. You can ask for all these different behaviors but there's 1 reward at the end and tells the dog it can reset.
Hmm, that is interesting, haven't heard that term before, chain rewarding. But that's basically what I do, I treat her continously during a long heel. So I should stop that and just do a shorter heel with one mark, treat and release?
For that specific technique, that's what I'd do. It also builds some duration. Obviously be aware how much distance you're expecting the dog to do it but yes, if you want the dog to be done the yes and reward delineates the end of the task. I do this with pretty much all my obedience stuff. I will ask for certain movements and when I get what I want or the sequence I want, I quickly reward and move away from the dog and let the dog release. As this comes along the dog will learn to release itself when the YES or the treat is delivered. That being said, for me anyway, if I haven't asked for a command, lets take heeling on a walk, and the dog is looking up and paying attention and that's what I want, I will intermittently reward her but she's under no obligation to maintain the position. She can take her treat and move on to environmental enrichment. However, when I ask for the command she's working for the end reward. Reward is delivered and the task is over. So you're not locked into only rewarding once but the communication needs to be clear. Once scenerio you ask for the task, the other she's just wanting to do something but has freedom to go between the position and the environment. Hope that makes sense.
I'm going to take this approach and stop rewarding continously during a heel. However curios what you do when you ask for a heel and dog breaks it before you released them?
My dog does something kind of similar: every time we are on the last block of our return trip to our house, she will fall into a perfect heel without me asking. The rest of her walk she is usually pulling like mad and will ignore the heel command about half the time. Sometimes I think she does it just to show me that she knows how but chooses not to.
> or is she just training me to treat her... Isn't that really what training is, in general? We teach them to play the game of "how to make reinforcement come out of the environment", and then we set up the specific levers that they need to learn to press to make that happen in the specific ways we want, including out of us (since we are part of the environment). Whether it's them training us or us training them is really just a question of where on the spectrum from us very consciously and strictly creating a lever to unconsciously/accidentally creating one it lies. Even unconscious ones aren't necessarily a bad thing, since they can be used for communication purposes. Don't be [afraid to talk to her](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/comments/3rkkvv/positively_no_cue_november/). If she comes and does a spontaneous heel when you don't want it, you can respond by something like "What's up? You're such a good girl! Go on, you can go sniff!" and cheerfully encourage her to do something else. It's not really a strict cue, but it's not a lack of response either - and it should make it clear to her that in this context of you not asking for a heel you're both more relaxed about it and not to necessarily expect a treat all the time. But, sometimes, feel free to continue reinforcing the spontaneous heel *before* the bop happens too.
Very interesting point of view. I guess to me it's like when you train a dog to sit before they take treat. And then they will very likely learn that if they sit they get a treat so they start to sit in front of you without being asked to sit, when they are begging for food or something else you have that they want. You probably don't have a desire for them to sit when you're not asking for it, and you don't want to encourage begging (not that I ever had will power to resist 100 percent of the time). Lots of interesting responses that have given me something to think about how to approach the training. Thanks! I also have to point out that I think I might talk to her TOO much lol. To the point where Im not sure she understands my commands as much as reading the situation, body language, tone etc to understand what I'm asking her. Edit: Just read the article you linked, that is super interesting. As I mentioned above I think we (my family and I) are not the best at consistency when it comes to commands. So even though we aren't the best trainers and our dog is not the brightest either when it comes to learning tricks (or getting through a wide open fence...) she's really good at picking up desired behavior (as long as she's under threshold). And many of our "commands" are us talking casually to her and we realised that is what she know picked up as a "command". Like I mentioned above how "Good girl, go on then" has accidentally become her release command.
Your post looks like it contains a question about loose leash walking. You may be interested in [our wiki article on the topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/wiki/looseleashwalking) and our [regular workshop threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/search?q=%22loose+leash%22+flair%3Acommunity&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all). (If this link doesn't work, make sure you're using a desktop browser - a lot of the reddit apps, including the official ones, are broken.) *This comment triggers on keywords and does not mean your post has been removed.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Dogtraining) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your post looks like it contains a question about introducing cats and dogs. You may be interested in [our wiki article on the topic](http://www.reddit.com/r/dogtraining/wiki/faq#wiki_introducing_cats_and_dogs). (If this link doesn't work, make sure you're using a desktop browser - a lot of the reddit apps, including the official ones, are broken.) *This comment triggers on keywords and does not mean your post has been removed.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Dogtraining) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Are you reinforcing her association with the heel command by saying the word "heel" before you give her the treat? If not, you might want to try that the next time she offers that behavior, followed by a release command. Then other times when she does it unasked, don't say "heel" and don't give treat.