How To Train Your Dog To Heel

Heelwork is, without doubt, the most tedious part of gundog training. It’s boring for a young dog and it’s monotonous for the handler. But get it right – and in the correct way – and it’s about far more than just having a dog that sticks like glue to your left knee-joint!

As in every facet of harnessing the skills of young gundogs, heelwork comes easier to some dogs than others. And the very same applies to handlers.  On the part of the handler a lot of it has to do with attitude and patience. 

As I have said, heelwork can be very boring to teach and if the handler is impatient by nature and demands instant results, the short-cuts that are so often applied produce some very sad results and some very “creepy” dogs.

Those of us who have spent a lifetime working with gundogs know that every dog, and I mean every dog, is wired differently in its approach to training and subsequently its “trainability”. So for many first-dog trainers it can be difficult to achieve the desired results when the response to a set of recommended, formulaic of instruction doesn’t deliver the anticipated outcome. 

A lack of wider experience and a genuine unawareness of how to get over a problem, often results in applying dominance tactics. And in heelwork training that is all too often what happens.

Don’t be in a rush to put on a lead

A lot of spring born pups will be having a lead slipped around their necks for the first time in the coming months – but the timing of this is critical. In so many cases the urge to put a lead on a young pup cannot be resisted, but when the pup is physically and mentally immature it simply results in the handler wanting to go one way and the pup invariably resisting with toddler-like truculence. 

The outcome creates the first real conflict between dog and handler; the handler is committed to achieving some sort of control but the pup resists. It’s either tug-of-war time or the pup is simply dragged or coaxed into submission.

But this really is too much too soon. I don’t put a pup on a lead until it’s probably around five months old – a time when it has already learned to trust me and have confidence in me and a time when it is both mentally and physically able to process what is actually happening. 

And when you think about it, if someone suddenly puts something around your neck that tightens when you resist you too might need a few minutes to work out what on earth was going on!

On their regular trips out of the kennels my pups have time to follow me about in the paddock; in very casual-play mode they come bounding up to me when I give a few pips on the whistle and when they do they get a treat. 

Heelwork should not be about subservience

I’ll then walk a few yards with them following me and give them lots of encouragement. They are learning heelwork and they don’t know it! So when the time comes for the lead to go around the neck it’s no big deal. There’s no yanking or jerking needed to achieve control because there’s no conflict. We are both “on the same page” as they say. I am not trying to dominate; I am just there, as I have always been, as someone they want to be with.

Of course any heelwork at this stage is not precise and regimented but it’s sufficient to have laid the foundation that will result in an attentive and response dog at my heel – and all achieved with no brutality and no strangulation techniques.

Going back to the start of this article and that vision of the dogs hugging the handler’s legs. I mentioned that the training techniques used can often be spotted if you look closely at the dogs’ response when the handler stops. It’s not difficult to see those that cringe and sink down into their shoulders and those that seem almost to drop down on to their belly as soon as the handler stops.

These are the signs of dogs that have been produced by handlers who, at best, have shown impatience in applying heelwork training and have opted for the heavy-hand approach. The end-result can look outwardly impressive until to realise the only thing that has been achieved is total subservience. 

Constant tugging and jerking is a futile means of correction

And to me, a dog that is in a constant state of being chastised in some way is not in the correct mental state to learn the myriad of skills we want it to master as an effective shooting dog.

Of course dogs that do try to creep ahead on the lead in the early stages of lead training do need to know that it’s not acceptable and sending an appropriate message down the lead is often necessary. 

But applying any mode of correction while the dog is on-going in forward motion rarely has the desired long term effect. The dog needs to learn that it’s forward movement in such a manner – in other words going in front of the handler or straying to the side - is going to be stopped if it persists.

So when this happens I ask for a sit and probably follow it with walking the dog in a circle, keeping the dog at heel, before we continue to walk on. The idea is to break the dog’s creeping forward routine with a marked change of pace and direction.

But even though confidence has been achieved between dog and handler and heelwork is progressing off the lead, it’s worthwhile having something that you can do if the creeping starts again, without having to revert to replacing the lead.

I use a plaited rope slip collar which hangs loosely around the neck but provides a very useful means of instant control for the handler instead. It avoids, as we so often see, the dog being physically pushed back into place or given a threating gesture. In the long term this leads to a dog the cringing or creeping style of heelwork. 

I cannot see any virtue in having a dog that walks at heel but whose primary focus is avoiding the chastisement of the handler. I want my dogs to be at heel in a confident and relaxed state with a mind that is in-tune with the job in-hand as a working gundog and not on the verge of collapsing into a belly flop just because I might sneeze!

Jeremy Hunt is GunsOnPegs' dedicated gundog writer and is also the owner of Fenway Labradors. He has been breeding Labradors for over 25 years and is based in Lancashire, England.

Jeremy also runs gundog training days offering individual or small group training sessions, by the hour, half or full day.

jeremy@fenwaylabradors.co.uk
07798 826179