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Teaching your dog to heel is one of the most basic and important dog training commands you can teach. With an active and younger dog or puppy, it can be especially difficult, but with patience and consistency, it doesn’t really have to be that hard to train your dog to heel.

The best time to practice teaching your dog to heel is before you’ve begun going on walks. Your dog is easily distracted out on the street and you will need his attention to properly teach the heel command. Also, you want to be in a patient and pleasant mood. Do not begin this, or any other dog training session, if you are angry or in a testy mood. You should not train your dog in an unkind or rough manner. Furthermore, it is best to teach the heel command after your dog knows his name and the “Sit” command.

You will want to limit the heel training session, as with other dog training sessions, especially for young puppies to about 10 or 15 minutes and to 2 or 3 times in a day. Make sure they’ve gone to the bathroom and have eaten and had some water. You want their full attention for this.

For this training session, you might want to use a dog training collar, but it is not necessary. In the backyard or garden put a lead on the dog, and keep him on your left side. Hold the leash in both hands, your right hand through the loop and your left hand holding the leash with your elbow by your side and out straight.

You want to keep your dog’s neck about even with your left leg, and as you begin to move that is the signal for the dog to begin walking. Your dog or puppy will initially not understand what to do and either try to run ahead or around. Simply make gentle corrections, say “Heel” and keep them on your left side. Try to keep the lead slack and if your dog begins to tug on it either stop or gently correct with the leash and stop moving. Do not pull your dog forward or yank the leash back violently. Continue moving only as your dog is on your left side. Try not to move if the leash becomes tight as this teaches them to tug and pull on it.

You will want to vary your direction and speed, turning in circles or doing figure eights. As your dog goes in the correct direction on your left side, remember to give lots of praise. You might use a dog training clicker or a treat, but try to keep your methods consistent with other dog training commands you use. Try to end the dog training session on a positive note with something the dog has done correctly, followed by lots of praise.

Dog Training HQ provides dog training articles and resources to help dog and puppy owners learn to train their pet effectively. Please visit http://www.dogtraininghq.com for more helpful dog training and puppy training advice.

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Yes! Believe it or not you can train your pet cat to do almost anything a cat is physically capable of doing using humane positive reinforcement techniques using a process called Clicker Training.

Clicker Training is a method of training using the scientific principles of Operant Conditioning. Simpler than it sounds, clicker trainers use a plastic box noise maker called a “clicker” to mark the behaviour they want and follow up with a reward, usually a food treat.

By a process known as “shaping”, clicker trainers mould their cat’s behaviour into the behaviour they want.

Clicker Training can also be used to solve common cat problems such as spraying, scratching, clawing, climbing on kitchen benches and difficulties in administering medication. Clicker Training is a no-force method of training which is ideal for sensitive or no-nonsense animals such as cats.

Some of us, when learning to clicker train, decided to try it on our cats first, so we didn’t make any mistakes with our competition dogs. We soon learned that it was impossible to make mistakes that couldn’t be easily fixed using this method, unlike with traditional training methods where little mistakes tended to snowball into bigger ones or crop up when we least expected them. What’s more, our dogs were having more fun, so were our cats, and so were we!

If you have a cat, or a dog, guinea pig, rabbit, goat, ferret, horse or pig, type “clicker training” into any search engine and discover a whole new world of training possibilities!

Aidan Bindoff is intensely interested in animal behaviour and works to remediate fearful, anxious and aggressive dogs in Australia. He also runs the FREE “Positive Petzine” featuring regular articles on dog behavior and training at http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/positivepetzine/.

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Have you ever wondered if your pet cat can learn tricks? Sure! Follow these instructions to teach your cat a simple trick which forms the foundation for a whole range of new tricks.

This trick is known as targetting, and it is the same trick we teach dogs, dolphins and exotic zoo animals. It forms the basis for a number of other tricks from competition obedience, to marine mammal shows, to animal acting on TV, to animal husbandry and veterinary handling.

We simply teach our cat to touch the end of a target stick with his nose. The same target stick can be used to teach a cat to go somewhere for a movie scene, or to stay on the vet’s exam table, or to run around an obstacle course!

You will need:
A chopstick or knitting needle
A spoon and a can of your cat’s favourite food (for most cats we will just use canned food, but some cats go crazy for plain tuna)
A hungry cat, just before dinner time, who hasn’t been fed for several hours.
A clicker, which is a little plastic box noise maker sold at pet stores, alternatively you can make a “cluck” noise with your tongue.

Have a small amount of food on your spoon, hold it away from your cat. Present the target stick (chopstick or blunt end of knitting needle) to your cat for three seconds.

If your cat shows any interest in the target stick, click and let your cat have a lick of the food on your spoon.

If he turns his head, reaches forward, or takes a step towards the target stick, click and let your cat have a lick of food (we will call this “click and treat” from now on.)

Now put the target stick behind your back. Wait a second or two, then re-present it. Again, any interest in the stick gets a click and treat.

Keep doing this until your cat reliably shows interest in the target stick whenever you present it. Remember not to present it for any more than three seconds, then put it away. If your cat starts to walk away from the target, don’t click. If he completely loses interest, try again some other time, but make sure you click and treat even the slightest interest shown. It can speed things up to rub just a little food on the end of the stick.

If your cat is reliably showing interest in the target stick, then wait until your cat is actually touching the stick before you click and treat. When he is reliably touching the stick each time you present it, try selectively clicking and treating only the times he touches the end of the stick, anywhere on the last 2 inches.

Now, try moving the stick a little, just half an inch. See if puss will follow the target stick with his nose. Click and Treat if he makes any effort to follow the target stick with his nose.

When he is reliably following the target stick just a little way, try moving it a little further, then a little further. This is a process known as “shaping”, where we make the criteria a little harder, bit by bit.

There you have it! Puss is now trained to follow a target stick. You could set up a little obstacle course and run him through it just for fun. Remember to “shape”, build up each step piece by piece with lots of clicks and treats for each step along the way.

Now show your friends how clever puss really is!

Aidan Bindoff is intensely interested in animal behaviour and training. He is editor of Positive Petzine, a FREE resource for people training their own dog (or cat!) http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/positivepetzine/

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