OB600 Healing Your Heeling Handling

Week 1

Introduction

General Points & Terminology

Rhythm, Normal Pace & Straight Lines

Week 2

Left Turn

Right Turn

Week 3

About Turn

Week 4

Halt

Week 5

Speed Transitions

Week 6

Figure 8

If you are comfortable with your handling or parts of the handling you use when you are heeling with your dog, stick with it. I don't want to change anything you are doing successfully. You have figured out how to communicate with your dog and you are probably already handling in a similar manner to what I will be describing in this course. But, if you are struggling with any part of handling, then this course will help you relax and focus on handling in a totally different way.

There are experienced handlers that readily adapt to the “footwork” needed to help their dog's performance. However, it is my experience that the average handlers struggle with "footwork" during heeling. They get paralyzed in thinking too much about where each foot is supposed to be placed. When focus is placed on spatial awareness and upper and lower body movement, there is no need for specific “footwork” in heeling.

When you are heeling with your dog in a trial or match, you listen to the judge and translate those commands into movement and rhythm changes. It is much easier to do this by "feeling" instead of translating commands to individual steps or foot placements. My goal is to present a different way of performing the handling where footwork is not important. Each handling maneuver can be done by starting on any foot. You don't have to panic when the judge calls a command and you are not on the correct foot.

Handling practice will be done without the dog. It's important that you do not incorporate any of these handling maneuvers with your dog until you are comfortable with them and feel the difference in your movement.

What I want to help you learn is how to feel your way through handling instead of thinking through it so much. We will analyze specifics of handling and break it down, but the important part is getting you into a “feeling” or zone state of mind rather than a “thinking” state of mind. When you get into a more feeling place, it will focus you internally which helps your movement - instead of externally on more specifics which will cause stiffness and over thinking. It's not easy to explain in words, but when you feel it yourself, it becomes easier to apply.

One thing I want to note is that the handling I am describing in this class is for heeling performance in a trial. There are many training maneuvers and handler movements that we do with our dogs to counter heel position mistakes (for example, moving away from the dog or fading to the right, when the dog is heeling wide and left pivots when the dog is forged). I use these movements all the time when I am training my dogs. I want to emphasize that its not wrong to use them as part of training.