A tight pivot turn is essential for Rally Obedience, and also a valuable skill for any heeling exercise with your dog. This video shows the progression of these Rally students working on this behavior. The brief outline of this process is as follows:
1. Two front paws target object with duration of 10-20 seconds. Once you have this duration of the front paw target, you can move on to step 2!
2. Human takes slight step to their right (if the goal is the dog pivoting into a left heel position - if the goal is pivoting into right side, human will step to the left.) Mark right as the dog moves back end even just a step or weight shift, treat & repeat.
3. Look for bigger movements of the dog's back feet. Shape bigger steps on the dog's part, trying to keep the human's right-step prompting movements very small.
4. Once the dog is offering bigger steps, string several steps together before you mark.
5. Continue to gradually raise your criteria until your dog is tucked in at your side. Now the cue to reconnect with your side and "pivot" into heel is you stepping slightly forward around the object from your dog.
6. Fade the pivot object to smaller and smaller objects until you can eliminate it entirely.
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