How to Teach your Dog to Heel

Video Transcript

" Hi this is Elise McMahon for Expert Village.com and in this video series we are talking about taking your dog for a walk. If you would like to find out more about my services, you can visit my website at www.canineheadstart.com. In this short video clip, we will be talking about how to teach your dog to walk by your side. There are a couple of different positions that your dog can be in when you are out walking your dog. If you are going for an exercise walk with your dog, having your dog at the end of a 4 or 6 foot end leash is fine. If you are going to be walking in public or if you just want to practice control with your dog, you can have your dog healing by your side. So I am going to show you how to do that with this little girl here. When we start out we are going to have the leash in our right hand and we are going to have some treats, rewards in our left hand. We are just going to do a little demonstration walk and come back and explain to you what you will see. All right. Let’s go, Ursa. Let’s go. Let’s go. Good girl. What I am doing here is reinforcing the dog for walking exactly where I want her. I don’t have her behind, I don’t have her in front of me and on occasion I just pop a cookie into her mouth. Again, I am looking for a common relaxed walking attitude; not a lot of dancing around, not a lot of pulling. This is called healing. Typically it’s an obedience command in competition of obedience but often people will give it a nicer name when they are just out walking their dog. Like walk with me, by my side but the idea is that the dog walks right along the side of you. "