walking heel vs obedience heel

There’s a big difference between the #obedience #competitionheel vs the #walkingheel . . 📍In the first portion of the video you can see @atravis13 walking down the streets of #nyc with Samson in an obedience heel while holding #eyecontact the majority of the time. It’s flashy, fun and draws a lot of attention to us. It’s also a great engagement exercise that of done right can help strengthen the relationship between you and your dog . . 📍Because we work with #petdogs (#puppies to real deal #problemdogs) we spend more of our time teaching a walking heel vs a flashy obedience one. With our own personal dogs and dogs as an extra fun engagement/trick like behavior, an obedience heel is awesome . . But for most of our clients their dogs struggle with arousal while on the walk. This is where the bulk of leash aggression, leash reactivity and general leash pulling/pushy on leash behavior comes from. Because of this our main objective on the walk is to help reduce stress, anxiety and overall arousal that often serves as the trigger for the inappropriate stuff that goes on on the walk . . 📍While a dog holding eye cotact throughout the walk is cool and is something that we can teach, it is actually a really unnatural, uncomfortable position for many dogs and can lead to dogs maintaining arousal, stressing and doing so just for food instead of learning to relax and take in the scene. And while we can ask for it and have a dog hold eye contact for extended periods of time, it’s really unrealistic to ask a dog for it throughout the walk or have them feel that it’s a necessity. For us we don’t mind the occasional check in but don’t require eye contact on the walk at all actually. We instead allow the dog to chill and will utilize leash, verbal, body language, etc. as a form of communication throughout the walk when/if needed. Because we train our dogs to pay attention to these things, overall communication throughout the walk and everyday life is seamless and calming . . 📍#packwalk #dogtricks #dogobedience #realworlddogtraining #dogsofdctk9 #dogtraining #dogtrainingthatworks #happydogs #calmdogs #dogtrainingthatworks