The ‘Noga’ Command – How Not to Teach.

The ‘heel’ command is one of the basic exercises every dog should know. Some people teach their dog to walk behind them on the left-hand side, whilst others, as shown in the video above, teach the dog to turn to the left.

Whichever method you choose, it’s important to remember to teach your dog to think (which is what I teach at my training school) and to carry out the command first time. Whilst browsing the internet, I noticed that most YouTube trainers focus heavily on teaching ‘correction’ rather than on performing the exercises correctly. It seems logical, but it isn’t. Why? Because instead of remembering the ‘Heel’ command, the dog remembers the other one: ‘Correct’. An example of this misunderstanding can be seen in the video above.

The ‘Foot’ command – what to look out for?

When you start training, remember that this is a sequence of two exercises: ‘Come to me’ and ‘Heel’. Try to train them precisely and consistently. I haven’t seen the ‘Correct’ command ;) <Tuba> in any training guidelines, so don’t use it. Teach your dog to perform the ‘Heel’ exercise correctly so that you, as the handler, don’t have to correct the dog. The video above shows how not to teach it; in the long run, this behaviour will cause frustration for the owner and a lack of understanding on the dog’s part. These are things that are completely unnecessary.