The Spaniel Annals
working and living with performance spaniels
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about
I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
- agility
- Behavior
- competition
- conditioning
- dockdiving
- dual champion
- English Cocker
- English Springer Spaniel
- Fetch!
- field work
- Freestyle
- Gordon Setters
- heeling
- heeling journal
- Irish Water Spaniel
- match
- mental preparation
- new freestyle behaviors
- puppy training
- rally obedience
- retrieve
- scent work
- TEAM
- tracking
- training
- Uncategorized
- Utility obedience
Category: heeling
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Kerrie’s heeling has been coming along quite well, but one bug-a-boo was her tendency to look around and/or drop her head on the about turn. I’ve found in problem-solving little isues like this that it’s always good to go back to foundations, and use foundational tools. Over and over again I’ve found the pockethand method…
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Kerrie and Brian had run-throughs of their obedience routines last weekend, and I’ve posted excerpts of Kerrie’s run below. She’s made excellent progress in terms of focused heeling for longer periods, and is not lacking for joy in the ring. All good! Things to work on are: continued focus work on her about turns and…
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Kerrie’s heeling needs to increase in duration and focus to prepare for AKC Novice obedience. One of the major ways I work on duration is through Laura Romanik’s heeling grids. Laura is an outstanding trainer in Ohio who introduced heeling grids to me in a seminar many years ago. I’ll explain them briefly here, but…
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Kerrie’s Beginner Novice legs gave me good information for our heeling training in the next several weeks. In the ring, I got many moments of solid engagement, and then sporadic look-aways, especially on her about turns. So in a recent training session, I set up an open lid of food on top of a bucket…
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Kerrie is now 15 months and working on her heeling. Since I’m trying so many new things with her training, I’m keeping a video journal to review and have them for future reference. Sharing them here will help renew this blog! What kinds of new things am I doing? Starting with Brian, I committed to…
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Once Brian and I progressed to moving circles in his heeling, a lack of clarity emerged in his training: his commitment to heel position. Small dogs especially tend to heel wide, to get away from those big human feet and to be able to look up and see the handler/trainer’s upper body. I’ve been sloppy…
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Just a catch-up on Brian’s heeling in early spring of 2021. While sometimes I feel like we’re behind where my past dogs have been at this age, I have to remind myself that I’m trying a new approach with him (much more shaped and almost no luring), so taking it slow to watch out for…
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Ruckus’ development from rally novice to obedience novice trialing has required a few major changes, the biggest one weaning him off my cheerleader voice. He got too dependent on my voice in rally, which was not really his fault when I was using my voice (overusing, I think) to build up his animation and intensity.…
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Yesterday on the morning of Reardon’s obedience trial in Lynden, WA, my mantra was: We’re double winners! I like mantras; Jane Savoie, the Olympic equestrian competitor and author of many books about the mental game, encourages adopting words or phrases to chant the weeks before a competition and on that day. How are we double winners? …
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This past year, I’ve struggled with getting Gael to trot when she is attention heeling. I’m still using a lot of food, but no matter what, she has so much reach and drive that I could only get her into an extended walk. Finally on the suggestion of a German Shepherd friend of mine, I…
The Spaniel Annals 