Training Tip Tuesday – My Rear End – Backward Heel

Yes there has been plenty written about my rear end… It seems to be a continual point of interest for mum mainly due to the fact I don’t always lift my back tootsies over bars in agility.  To the point mum often refers to me as “One Bar Bodhi“.  We have down Bowen and Chiro to see if there was a physical reason I drop bars.

Essentially jumping is overrated according to 1st World Dog.

Part of the thinking is that I don’t have a lot of awareness of where my back legs are and hence we are doing a bunch of exercises for rear end awareness.  This youtube clip has a bunch of different things we are doing (not all of them…. I’m not keen on the tyre one) but they might also give you some ideas.

But the one we are working on for today’s Training Tip Tuesday is Backward Heel (because I have to do this for Rally Excellent now that I got my Rally Advanced).

So how does mum get me to heel backwards? It is all about a wall.

I will be doing my normal follow mum around the house and as we walk up the hallway or somewhere like that where there is a wall she will say “back” and turn her hand so I am looking at the back of her hand. And we step back together.

It is just short & sweet so we only do this a couple of times as mum is doing things around the house. She always seems to have treats in her pocket so when I do it right I get a “yes” and a treat or pat.

As I have got better at walking backwards against a wall we have moved to practicing further away from a wall and with no wall around… cause the last I look I haven’t seen a random wall in a Rally course, although that could be an alternate use for the solid jump (cause I jump that without knocking bars…. they jut need more of those in an agility course).

 

Enjoy learning to heel backwards.