How to Teach Your Poodle to Heel

Video Transcript

Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village, and today we’re going to talk about training dogs. So let’s work with this standard poodle on the heel or walking nicely on a leash. Now Aida here has a no pull harness on. She’s an older dog, she’s a little bit calmer than your typical standard poodle. So I am going to use the no pull harness. Check out the video on equipment and tools to decide what’s right for you and your dog, before you proceed teaching your standard poodle how to heel. Now the heel is the position, it’s usually on the left side that’s tradition, it doesn’t matter which side you choose as long you are consistent. Her right shoulder should be even with your left leg. So right now she is in the heel position, even though we’re not moving. It’s very, very useful not only to keep your dog under control, let you be in control of the walk, but also to reinforce your dog for paying attention to you on walks. Now, teaching your dog to pay attention using the name game while you’re teaching your standard poodle how to heel is very helpful. So I am going to say the word “heel” and start walking. Now with this particular piece of equipment, if she starts to get ahead, it’s just a little pull and a release. She wants her leash to be as loose as possible. Now there I walked right into her. I’d much rather walk into her, or try to manipulate her space with mine rather than pulling on the leash. Now she stopped, she’s interested in something else, I don’t want to pull on her. I want to make it fun to pay attention to me. Let’s go… come on, now we got a little step there, we’re going to keep running, good girl, good girl, oh… now we’re paying attention, come on, ump, now we’re too hyped up, so I’m going to slow down. It’s very helpful to vary your position, vary your speed when you’re teaching a dog to heel … again I don’t want to pull her over, I can also use food as a lure if I need to. Good girl. You can also use food to teach your dog how to turn or turn towards you so you can see. Heel, all the way up good. So she gets marked in a treat when she’s in the right position. Good girl, let’s go. Now poodles are lovely dogs and they like to prance, it’s very handsome to see a standard poodle when they’re heeling properly and paying attention to you.

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