Heeling

Teaching tricks is a fun and interactive process - for both, the handler and the dog. It's much more fun than what we (at least where I live) call "old school" obedience, meaning mostly heeling with some other obedience elements every now and then. I think that getting an excited heel from the dog is kind of an art, for the same reason that I mentioned before - teaching and training it is not much fun, so dogs will often get bored. But is it possible to make heeling more fun? I think that all people who can make their dogs think heeling is fun, shouldn't have any problems convincing them everything else they do is also fun!

There is absolutely no reason why one shouldn't teach everything as a combination of tricks - even heeling, for example. I made a video of my new puppy learning the heel position through a combination of tricks. We learned this method in Silvia Trkman's puppy school and I am very happy with it so far. With her permission, here is the video: