Teaching attention with heeling

We now have the animal a little in hand. It understands that the way to win bites is by responding to commands–even when it is terribly excited.

But we still lack something very important. In order to control the dog and maneuver it about the field, we need its attention. And this is precisely the problem because, as a result of months of agitation, the decoy has become incredibly “magnetic” to the dog. All the time that the animal is on the field its eyes remain locked on the man.

How can the handler possibly compete with the agitator for the dog’s attention? Again, the classic method is to inhibit the dog–physically shock it until its level of excitement drops. As a result its orientation response to the decoy will become weaker, and it can be made to look at its handler instead. Earlier in this chapter we described this procedure as a no‑win scenario because it pits the handler against the dog’s desire to bite.

We have another way. Just as we taught the dog to pay for bites with sits and downs, we can also teach it to pay for bites with attention. Quite simply, if the dog looks in its handler’s eyes, it gets to bite. If it looks at the agitator, it does not.

The trick is to get the animal to turn its head and look at its handler when everything in it, all the force of its instinct and its training, point it at the decoy like a compass needle pointing north. We do it by making use of heeling, an exercise in which it has already learned habitual attention.

Just as before, the helper stimulates the dog and the handler sits it. Then the handler commands it to “Heel!” then pivots smartly 180 degrees and begins walking briskly away from the decoy. As he does so he corrects his dog sharply in order to break the animal’s hypnotic stare at the decoy and bring it around the turn.

The direction the handler takes is extremely important. He heels away from the decoy because it will be much easier to draw the dog’s eye when the man is behind him instead of directly in front.

The dog, if it is any good at all, will strenuously resist being taken away and persistently try to look back over its shoulder at the agitator. The handler just strides briskly along, correcting with the leash each of the animal’s attempts to turn back toward the agitator. After a few paces, the animal’s eyes will, from confusion and force of habit, settle on its handler’s. At that moment the handler gives the “Get him!” command.

After a few repetitions of the procedure, when the dog hears the “Heel!” command it will snap its eyes off the decoy, come smartly around to heel and lock its eyes on its handler’s.

The animal has made a very important transformation. Before, it regarded the path to the bite as lying directly along its line of sight at the decoy. Now, it realizes that when it hears the command to “Heel!” its path to the bite does not lie along its line of sight. It goes first to its handler’s face, and it is here that the dog now directs its energy.

Once we have the dog’s attention, once it looks in its handler’s eyes, then we have it under control, even on the protection field.