7. Finish

7. FINISH

LEVEL THREE

Dog is able to follow eye contact while the handler pivots to the left.

DISCUSSION: So many places the swing Finish will be useful! I don't just use it for getting the dog back into Heel position from in front of me. I also use it for left turns and the Figure 8 in Heeling, for getting us both going the same direction in agility, for teaching the sidestep and backing up for Rally-O, and for getting the dog out of my way when I'm carrying groceries… By the way, when you hear someone talking about the "Get Lost Game", this is it - or half of it, anyway. The other half is the right pivot for the beginning of the Heel.

EASY BEGINNINGS: Eye contact. In the Level 3 Watch, you're working on 30 seconds of eye contact. WARNING: do NOT start the Finish until you have a really, good, solid, 30 seconds of eye contact! Put the dog away for a minute, we need to talk.
Let's discuss a pivot. Drop a coin on the floor, put one of your toes on the coin, and turn left. Do NOT move the coin, and do NOT take your toe off the coin. That's a pivot. If you took even a tiny step in any direction, you weren't pivoting, and not pivoting can really mess the dog up on this behaviour. When you pivot, the dog has to walk around you – that's what we're looking for.

Start with the dog in front of you, with solid eye contact. Click X10 for contact, then on the 11th contact, pivot slightly to your left instead of clicking. Click when she finds your eyes again. Another 5 clicks for contact, and when you get the 6th one, pivot again, clicking when she finds you again. Be sure that your body language remains the same – you're looking directly in front of you, waiting for HER to find YOU, you're not turning your head to find her.

Play with this and the dog will begin to hold your eyes instead of letting you "escape" and having to find you later. That's all we need at this level, but don't skip ahead. If you don't work to real, solid eye contact here, you're going to miss out on a lot of neat stuff later!

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE DOESN'T FOLLOW MY EYES, SHE JUST STANDS THERE! How can you explain this to her? Click a LOT for eye contact before you try turning. Be sure that you turn AWAY FROM CONTACT – in other words, TURN INSTEAD OF CLICKING. If you hand her a treat and turn away while she's looking down and chewing, hey, maybe you decided to quit playing. Maybe you're getting another handful of goodies. Maybe you heard the phone ring. But, if you click for contact ten times in a row (or 20, or 40) and then just get lost the eleventh time, you're going to make her mad. Hey, Stupid! We were playing here! Where's my click?

Or, sit down so your eyes are closer to hers, click a "billion" times, really fast, for eye contact, THEN pivot.

Or, get hysterical when you've turned and you "can't find" your dog. EEK, MY DOG IS MISSING! WHERE'S MY DOG? You want her to come around saying "I'm right here, geez, don't have a conniption!"

Try turning away fast and clicking when she finds you again. Try turning away very slowly and clicking for taking a single step to come with you while maintaining contact.

STOP LOOKING AT HER! If you're clicking for contact, then you turn your body but your eyes stay on her, she doesn't HAVE to move. Pretend you're holding a magnifying glass about the size of a dinner plate right in front of you at waist level. You can't see her any time at all unless you can see her in that magnifying glass. Then she HAS to come in front and look up before you can see her and click.

SHE DOESN'T HOLD MY EYES, SHE HAS TO LOOK WHERE SHE'S WALKING! Give her a lot more practise at stationary eye contact. Try backing slowly away from her and clicking for maintaining contact. See if you can get her to walk forward as you walk backward, holding contact. Sit down on a chair and turn slowly, clicking a weight shift without looking down or a single step.

ADDING A CUE: No cue yet, you're a long way from having a complete behaviour.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Try getting her food into her dish, and when you'd normally put the dish on the floor, turn your back on her instead. When she comes around, put the dish down. Do the same thing when you're peeling carrots or doing something else in the kitchen that would normally result in her getting something good. And click for contact. Click for contact. Everywhere, all the time, wherever, whenever, click for contact. Between Heeling and Finish, contact is about to get complicated, she better be good at it!

LEVEL FOUR

Dog swings into Heel while handler pivots, voice cues only.

DISCUSSION: We continue what the dog learned in Level Three, but now you need her to finish the job you started by swinging all the way into Heel position.

EASY BEGINNINGS:
Get a stick – your touchstick, a broom, or cane. Put one end of the stick on your stomach, with the other end sticking straight out away from you. Pivot left. Notice that the far end of the stick moves a lot faster than the near end? That's what we want the dog to do. The eye contact will anchor the dog's head right in front of you, and her tail will have to move much faster to keep up.
Let's define heel position before we go any further. When the dog is in heel position, she's very close to you – as close as she can be, really, without touching you. Her head-to-shoulder area is even with your hip (or the side seam on your pants), and her spine is in a straight line pointing in the same direction as yours (except her head is probably turned toward you, which is fine). For large dogs, YOU get to pick whether you want her head, her neck, or her shoulders even with your hip, but whatever you choose, she has to hold on to it. She can't be wobbling around with her head there sometimes and sometimes her shoulder there. So that's what we're looking for. How do we get there?

In Level Three, you asked the dog to simply come around with you when you pivoted to the left. We're going to continue that, but now we need her to come ALL the way into heel position. This isn't a new behaviour, it's just more of the same one. Get eye contact, pivot, click when she's coming with you and her rear is moving faster than her front. This is a duration-type behaviour, so it's a good place for 300-Peck – pivot, click when her butt swings past a certain point on your left. Start again, pivot, click when her butt swings an inch further than it did the last time. Then another inch. And another, and another. When she fails, start again at an easy point.

When she finally hits heel position, you can alternate between two responses. Initially, of course, you click her for finding it. Then you can start asking her to Sit in heel position before you click. And/or you can jump forward into a short Heeling routine as soon as she finds heel position. This is especially rewarding for dogs that like moving better than sitting.

Heel position is a place where an obedience dog, Rally dog, agility dog, drafting dog, water dog, tracking dog, Service Dog, and yes, conformation dog, is going to spend a lot of time. "Home base" as it were, so I need the dog to be completely comfortable and at home there. If you're in agility and you're starting to get worried about the right side, you can work that too. Right side heel position is the summer cottage – she needs to be comfortable there too, but the left side is home.

I need at least one other way to explain home base, so I'm just going to ask her to Sit, move myself so she's in heel position, and RapidFire X10 for her sitting in position. I'm going to do that once a day until she knows it's home and is looking for that position any time she gets near it.

And I'm going to occasionally be ahead of the dog and reward her when she finds heel position by just coming up and making eye contact.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

SHE SWINGS PARTWAY, THEN SHE STOPS! Your criteria is wrong. You've been pivoting, watching her swing partway with you. Then she stops, you think "Oh, I guess that's as far as she's going to go this time!" and you click. But you're clicking for STOPPING, not for SWINGING. You MUST click when she's MOVING if you want her to continue moving!

ADDING A CUE: Not yet. Wait for it. This is a VERY complicated behaviour!

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Any way you can think of to explain how good heel position is will help. Pet her in heel position. Feed her there. Get her sitting there before you let her outside. When you've got her pivoting all the way into heel position, you can start cutting down on how much movement you have to make in order to get the swing.

LEVEL FIVE

Dog performs half-point Finish 3 out of 3 times.

DISCUSSION: Here we require a full swing Finish, almost perfect – a slight crookedness allowed.

LEVEL SIX

Dog performs 2 out of 4 perfect from Front, 1cue only.

DISCUSSION: Now we're asking the dog to "get it right". You'll ask for four Finishes. Two must be spot on, spine straight, position excellent. If you're not interested in obedience competition, think of this as practise for you in getting something absolutely correct. And consider changing your mind – by Level Six, she's only a week or so away from the first obedience title! In the conformation variation, we're asking for backing up and coming forward, as well as sidestepping while still looking good and maintaining contact.

LEVEL SEVEN

Dog performs 3 out of 4 perfect Finishes from Front, 1 cue only.

DISCUSSION: Three out of four perfect Fronts, that's better than 95% of obedience competition dogs will give. Congratulations! In the conformation variation, the dog is now going to watch you and freestack no matter what's going on in the ring, and people will be whispering about how "lucky" you are to have a dog that "naturally" looks like that!