Today I’m going to offer a short but important basic obedience tip. When heeling with your dog or puppy start off with your left foot.  Remeber that your dog should be in the proper heeling position on your left hand side.  This may be awkward especially for right handed people because most of us will start walking with our dominant side, but with a little practice it will become natural. Starting off with your left foot provides a visual clue to your dog to start heeling with you. Also, if you have proper leash placement by starting with your left foot the leash should be engaged by your left knee or thigh coming forwards, thus giving a physical cue to your shepherd to begin heeling when the engaged leash pulls them slightly forwards. The other advantage of starting with your left foot is while your dog or puppy is in the heeling position and in a sit-stay you can move out of the heeling position by starting with your right foot and not trigger your dog to move out of the sit-stay position. This is useful for moving in front of your dog to begin a different training exercise such as ‘stay’ followed by the come command.

Remember even if you only have 5 minutes a day to practice obedience training with your dog or puppy, go ahead and utilize those 5 minutes because overtime it will pay off with great benefits for you and your dog.