Walking to heal off lead

[DodgeDog]

If you have a dog which walks to heal off lead, what breed is it? How did you train? How long did it take to train?

Most of our walks are rural off lead ones. He has excellent recall and walking to heal seems a good next step

Lab.
Trained to heel with a halti head collar and commands.
Happily walks to heel on command, stopped using the head collar within weeks iirc. We did put a lot of time and effort into training though, but she is a really good girl too.

Golden - 14 months
Dalmation - 6 years
Cocker Spaniel - 10 years

Trained the Cocker from day 1 (and I mean literally the day I took her home!). Lured her around the back garden with chicken whilst I was bent double. Made her walk to heel and rewarded her when she did it automatically.

Then on walks I had a long lead (not one of those ridiculous flexi ones but just one slightly longer than average to give her slack) and kept it loose whilst she walked next to me. Kept rewarding her until her natural instinct was to walk to heel - I didn’t tell her off if she ambled off but instead rewarded her for doing the right thing.

Then I took her to a dog field (new and exciting place) and let her off the lead and kept her to heel. She did try and run a few times but mostly she had learnt by then that ‘sticking close’ got her food. Then the next week, a different enclosed field etc.

Took about 4 months to perfect it anywhere. But I did it every day.

With the Dalmation she was a rescue so it was harder but ultimately she just liked to follow my cocker around so learnt by being a massive creeper.

The Golden just seemed to pick it up as instinct tbh- but I had him in a sling from day 1 on walks with the other two…so he saw them walking to heel and (I guess) just picked it up as being the right thing. Ever since his first walk he’s walked to heel…smarmy little git.

I was very lucky though - all of my dogs have always been so food motivated so training is a breeze.

I walk cockers and labs who do this but they don't walk to heel on a lead 😂

Cookerpoo (3).
Was kind of accidental. Knew the heel command on lead but needed to remind her ever so often- loves to pull like a draught horse!!
Anyway, I had enough and dropped her lead and told her to go wherever she wanted to. Long story short: tugged herself in between myself and my other dog and walks there more or less ever since! ⚠️ I would not recommend this method!!

I think my old labs were around 3 before they did this reliably. A dog trainer advised me to use a command that was different to 'heel' as that was my 'walking to heel on the lead' command. I think I used 'close' and also taught them 'back' so they would walk behind me which was really useful along narrow footpaths where I needed to be able to see ahead but the path wasn't wide enough for a dog and human side by side.

Border terrier (from working lines)
18 months old

Didn’t take long at all. In fact we started as a 9 week old pup. Just lots of reinforcement for being in the right place. When she was choosing to be in that position as it got her snacks I introduced ‘close’ as a cue. It’s mostly reliable but I’d not trust it around roads. Good around people and other dogs.

Springer - started walking to heel as soon as we got him in garden, he was generally good outside the house with a bit of a blip during adolescence. We do a lot of gundog training which really helps

However walking nicely on lead is still a work in progress 🙄😂

Reading with interest, as I currently seem to be walking a kangaroo.

She has no interest in treats, even sausage, after the first minute or so, much keener on bouncing wildly from scent to scent.

We do a lot, and I mean a lot, of stopping and reversing so as not to reward the pulling. Tell me she'll get it in the end...

English Toy Terrier
17 months
Started quite late, around 4-5 month old. I think it's because he has always walked nicely on the lead, without any training, so it wasn't really something that was on my mind.
I wanted a good recall but I didn't want to call him all the time, so I needed him to be focused on me.

I don't think I'll ever achieve what you can see in some videos with bigger breeds that are glued to the trainer's leg, simply because he's so small that I have to stop to give him the treat, I can't reach his mouth easily and I really don't want him to jump. Doesn't matter though, the outcome is the same!

Oh and I'm doing it (it's still WIP) by being a walking treat dispenser. He's very food motivated so it's easy. His morning meal is basically used for training.

Cockapoo aged 2.5 - not a hope. Will walk to heel on lead and will recall brilliantly off lead. The two together are beyond him at this point despite lots of training.

Heel means you can’t really SEE the dog.

Pulling on a lead is an absolute no no.

Walking off lead,as long as they stay close and with a reliable recall, that’s all I ask.

Competitive obedience is different though.

Collie, walks to heel offlead (trained using ball) won't walk to heel on lead

Collies are THE most trainable breed out there🙂!
We had a Lurcher that had a bit of collie in her and she was a delight to train ( but a little bit of collie makes a huge difference to a Lurcher)
Collies are ball and stick obsessed.

I bet you could train your Collie to do a perfect heel- You have a canine Einstein on your hands!

@DodgeDog Walking to heel ( in a safe place) is something young puppies do instinctively.

( see pic)
But Always have a puppy on a lead on a pavement.

As young pups they want to be with you and poddle along naturally at your heels.

Rescue lab. Walks nicely on lead unless he's in a new place where he struggles with impulse control for a short while. He will walk next to me on cue when off the lead for short distances. I am building this up, but don't really need him to do so for long periods.

He's 3, and it's taken 12 months to get to this point. He had had no training before I got him so I was starting from scratch.

I teach off-lead heel first anyway because walks are off-lead. Add in walks on pavements on a lead later once they've got more patience and impulse control. I teach it as a position, reward heavily when they are there. Once they come rushing to that position no matter where they are standing (so in front of you, behind you, to your left and right) indoors you take a few steps, big reward. Then increase distraction (in garden, on driveway, on walks) and duration (3, 4, 5 steps)

As to how long it takes, depends on your expectations! A 12 week pup could do 5 steps pretty quickly. 10 minutes walking past other dogs and ignoring a running squirrel, months.

Trained vizslas, Tibetan terriers, bearded collies and bichons

All very interesting thankyou

As young pups they want to be with you and poddle along naturally at your heels

People kept telling me that but mine didn’t seem to get that puppy memo

The best time to teach them this is when they are little puppies and following you around anyway.

Yeah, mine missed that bit of the user manual too.