Curious why and how to teach a contact heeling behavior? Contact heeling is a transport behavior distinctly different from formal obedience heelwork or loose leash walking – and in some instances, it offers significant advantages over either of those other options. In this episode Sarah Rida joins me to talk about why she teaches contact heeling, when it can be helpful, and how to actually begin training this useful skill.

Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Sarah Rida about contact healing. Hi Sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sarah Rida: Hi Melissa, thank you for having me.

Melissa Breau: Is it Ryda or Rida or how do you pronounce your last name?

Sarah Rida: Rida.

Melissa Breau: Okay, so sorry about that. But to start us out, do you want to just share a little bit kind of about you, your background, your current dogs, kind of what you're working on with them?

Sarah Rida: Yeah, totally. So I'm originally from Denver, Colorado. I've been living in Auckland, New Zealand for the past nine years with my partner and our two working line German shepherds, Mantis and Rue. We've just added a fifth member to our family.

We just had a newborn daughter about four weeks, so I'm currently four weeks postpartum. So life is definitely a little busy at the moment, but we're enjoying every, every bit of it. Here in Oakland, New Zealand, I work as a full time dog trainer, primarily coaching teams online with a large focus of that being around nose work, engagement skills, functional training, behaviors that really support spirit sports and everyday life.

I actively compete in nose work with my dogs, but my heart and soul sport is mondioring. Unfortunately we don't have the sport established here in New Zealand, but one of my long term goals is to help start the first Mondio club here. That's something that I hope to do here in the near future.

Melissa Breau: Awesome.

Sarah Rida: That said, with the lack of local club hasn't really stopped me from training in the sport.

A huge part of that has been working through the Mondio obedience program here through FDSA and I really credit Sarah Brueske as my coach through that process. It gave me a pathway to continuing to develop in the sport even without the local training community.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. So you mentioned that you kind of do dog training stuff full time. How did you get into it? And then, you know, how'd you go from general dog training to dog sports or the dog sports come.

Sarah Rida: Actually a bit of behavior work started first. So I got into dog training about nine years ago when I got my first German shepherd, Charlie. And like a lot of people with their first dog, I was honestly a little lost. I just moved to New Zealand and I was at a point in my life where I wanted a career change and I thought what better way to keep yourself occupied than getting a puppy.

So of course that puppy eventually turned into a teenage German Shepherd. And I quickly realized I wanted to understand behavior and training on a much deeper level. That led me to enroll in my first professional dog training qualification here in New Zealand. It was about a year long program where I studied canine behavior and training while actively working with Charlie. And that really jump started my education as a trainer.

After that I started kind of dabbling in set sports and I fell in love with nose work. What really drew me in was it showcased an innate ability that dogs already have. Unlike sports that tend to highlight very specific types of dogs, nose work was, it had a place for every dog and I really loved that. FDSA was honestly a huge part of my development during that time.

Being able to learn online from so many skilled trainers from around the world really shaped how I think about training and behavior. And then in 2022 I decided to add my second German shepherd, which was Mantis. And because he's a working line shepherd, I wanted to explore bite sports more seriously. And not long after that, literally a year after I, you know, a little crazy and was like, let's just add a third one into the mix.

The third one won't be a, you know, much difference from 23234. It doesn't, it's all same. And so we added Rue in and she's also a working line German shepherd and she actually became my partner dog through the Karen Pryor Academy program. So I finished my KPA qualification in 2024 and then shortly after in 2025, I completed my K9 Strength and Conditioning Coach certification through NC State. And that education really expanded how I think about dogs.

I already had a strong interest in behavior and learning, but strength and conditioning, that work really helped me better understand the physical side of the dog as well. Especially in sports dogs, the mental, the physical pieces are so interconnected. So it's a little bit of that mind, body and spirit or character of the dog. So I really, it's a huge part of my approach when I'm looking at the whole dog.

Currently I'm also working through the certified nose work instructor certification. So I'm definitely someone who loves continuing education. I'm always looking for ways to improve my understanding because ultimately that allows me to better support the teams that I work with.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Do you have like a general approach or a philosophy you kind of bring to training that you can talk about?

Sarah Rida: Yeah, my training is very criteria and reinforcement driven.

I spend a lot of time thinking about clarity for the dog? What information are we actually giving them? And are we reinforcing the behaviors we truly want long term? I also care a lot about functionality. I love behaviors that have a purpose outside of just looking impressive. I think dogs learn best when behaviors are clear, repeatable, and actually useful to them and the handler. And lastly, I really look at the emotional side of the dog.

I want dogs to feel successful and engaged in the process. So I want to dive into talking about contact heeling. I think, you know, when people hear the word heeling, they often picture kind of a formal competition heel work picture. So you know, what makes contact heeling different? I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions people have initially, when most people think about healing, they picture that focused heel work.

The dog is visually locked into the handler. You know, you have that neck stretched up sometimes, depending on the breed of dog you had, you get that, you know, prancy, feet, motion going in the front. And it's very precise precision. It's a very precision style. Movement, behavior. Contact healing is different because the dog is using physical contact rather than visual focus as their point of reference. For the version I teach, the dog maintains contact between their shoulder and the handler's leg while moving.

The dog doesn't need to stare at the handler. They are free to observe and observe their environment while still maintaining connection through that positional clarity. What does it mean to say that contact heeling is a functional transport skill? What does contact actually add to the communication between the dog and the handler? For me, transport behavior means behavior that helps move the dog and the handler together through space in a clear and functional way.

A lot of dogs struggle in spaces between exercises or between activities. They disconnect, they scan, they forge ahead, get overstimulated, or rehearse unwanted behavior. Contact heeling gives the dog a very clear job. During movement, the contact itself becomes information. The dog can feel where the handler is while they're moving. When directions change, direction change happens, or when speed change happens without needing that constant visual attention. I think the tactile piece is really powerful because it reduces ambiguity for a lot of the dogs.

It gives them with that little bit of tactile response with the shoulder to the handler's side of their leg, they have enough information there to stay connected and move through those spaces. And like I said, it just gives them the opportunity to be aware of their surroundings versus us maybe needing to take that away. And I think there's space for that right there. There are definitely moments where maybe we don't want our dogs to interact with the environment.

But there are some benefits to that as well. How can using contact heeling really help dogs? Maybe who are struggling with arousal or are just really distracted by the. Yeah. One thing I really like about contact heeling is that it tends to be less cognitive expensive than focused healing. You need a lot of energy, you need a lot of attention to perform a focused heel pretty accurately. The dog isn't trying to maintain intense visual focus, as I've mentioned, while also processing the environment.

Instead, they can observe what's happening around them while still staying behaviorally connected. So that connection piece is your engagement piece, essentially. And it allows the dog to take in the environment, learn about the environment, process that environment with still maintaining a behavior while they're doing it. So for some dogs, especially dogs that get environmentally overwhelmed or aroused, that can create some stability. You know, sometimes those dogs are, they.

They do need that. That attention taken away, but sometimes they do need to process the environment to learn about it, to be able to store that information in their brain so that next time they see it, it isn't so novel. Right. We're not always trying to take, you know, the attention away and they're not able to process the things that are going on around them. I also think movement itself can help dogs.

You know, for some dogs, they're. They move. Movement kind of helps release some of that arousal and, or, you know, possible frustration or it could be, you know, anxiety, depending on the dog that we're looking at. So being able to have movement kind of helps as well for some of those dogs. Sometimes we have dogs that prefer to just stop and. And process. But I think for a good portion of the dogs that I work with, you know, they are kind of teetering on, you know, that arousal being over arousal.

And sometimes that movement can really help. So instead of stopping and asking the dog disengage from the environment entirely, we're giving them structural movement behavior that allows them to process what's going on around them. That's really interesting. And kind of thinking about it, you know, you can almost picture how if your dog is against your leg, you can feel them, so you can be aware of them more things, including your dog.

And I imagine that that goes both ways, that the dog is. Because they're touching you, they're aware of you while they're processing the world around them. It just seems such like a. It's a different picture than we usually think about for this stuff, you know. Absolutely. It's, it's. It's a back and forth kind of feedback that's really what it is, you know, where sometimes in. In certain movement behaviors, you know, let's talk about like loose leash walking versus focused heeling versus contact heeling.

You know, with our loose leash walking behavior, it can look so different for so many of us. Yeah, we have that criteria that we want to loose, you know, that J. You know, in the. In the leash line, that slack. But in reality, some people allow their dogs to go just a bit ahead of them, or some people want their dogs behind them, and there's usually a space in between.

And so there's criteria for that as well, but it's not. It. That criteria is a lot looser. There's. It's. Some dogs will go forge a little bit ahead, some will got, you know, go off a little bit. Little bit more laterally or behind the handler as they're walking. Sometimes that leash does tighten up a little bit. And with contact healing, you know, again, that information piece is the contact itself.

So it's that give and take between the handler and the dog. I think for me as a handler, I know if I have my dog with me, if that contact point is being maintained, like, if I. If for whatever reason something happens into the. In the environment and I lose my dog, they get distracted by it, that contact point will also. Also get lost. And so then that's information for me that I need to change things up.

So it is that give and take kind of information. And it's not attached by a leash. It's not attached by eye contact. It's attached by a tactile reference. Yeah. And. And you know, just even thinking about that, right. Like the, the touch against the leg, it's so much more clear than like a loose leash walking picture where it's like, okay, at what moment did the leash actually become tight enough to cross the criteria?

Like, but with the. With a contact, you're either touching me or you're not. There's not really like a. Yeah, there's. It's a very clear thing. Without quite the level of precision is not quite the word I'm looking for, but without all of the other pieces that kind of tie into formal heel work for obedience. So I can totally see what you're getting at there. When we start to think about training it, you know, what foundational pieces need to be in place before dogs can understand what it is we're working on here.

Right. Understand contact heeling. Where do you start? I actually start with a very simple piece. I first, I want the dog to understand the contact point itself. So the shoulder to the leg for me. And I spend a lot of time building clarity around that before moving, adding movement to it. I will say, like, you know, this. This style of an A to B behavior, it really trickled down from ring sports, right?

So our bitey sports. And. And so with that, there's looser criteria and even what contact heeling will look like when we look at different dogs competing in those sports. Some people, they want their dog to be maintaining contact, you know, a little bit behind, almost like at their rib cage, to the handler's leg. You know, some people don't mind if the dog kind of is forging ahead as long as they're maintaining contact.

I think for what we're going to be teaching, having that reference point of shoulder to leg is really, really important because it allows everybody to have that some clarity in the criteria for the handler and for the dog. And personally, I like for the dog to kind of understand shoulder to leg, almost that side seam of the handler so that the handler can actually walk. We want it to be functional for the handler as well.

We don't want it to be, you know, the dog is saying, okay, well, I'm maintaining contact and I'm only touching you with my tail. You know, like, we want it to be functional. We want to be able to have the dog understand, you know, that contact point really well. And then from there, we can kind of add a lot of things to it. You know, again, once you understand contact heeling from.

From this standpoint, you know, if you wanted to teach something like defence of handler, you know, just for fun, you could, because the dog is going to have that reference point of shoulder on. On the handler's body versus rib cage or maybe, you know, more of that hind end area. The dog has a clear understanding, maintain contact with shoulder to my handler. And so I think it gives teams, both of them, clear criteria of where they.

Where we want them to be. So for it to be functional, really functional outside of it being for ring sports. So I use both shaping and luring, depending on the dog that's in front of me. Some dogs do really well with shaping. Some dogs, you can actually lure it. And I'll be honest, with my youngest dog, Rue, I actually captured it. I had already, you know, had the, you know, the ability to train my first dog, Mantis, on.

On. On this skill. So when I saw it with my younger dog, Rue, she one day just had kind of very young, like, I'm talking, like, probably within, you know, the time I got her. I would want to say between the eight to 16 weeks. She kind of offered this little bit of touch onto my body, and I said, oh, I really. That's pretty close to contact healing.

Like, I like what she's doing here. And so I captured it. I captured it with a flirt pole, and that's how I kind of taught her. So it just really depends on the dog in front of you. But for. For the purpose of what we're talking about in, you know, in. In the course that's. That's going to be coming up in June, it's shaping and luring, because those typically tend to be the easier routes to.

To establishing the behavior. And again, some dogs understand the picture initially, while others do better by taking more responsibility through shaping. You know, shaping can. And we would shape through the use of props like pivot discs and platforms to help the dog kind of understand that body position and the movement mechanics before we start really moving through space. You. You were talking before about, you know, some dogs kind of, they.

They forge a little bit or they're a little forward. And I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to be tripping over your dog as they like, half walk in front of you or like you turn towards them, and now suddenly your dog's on your right, like, all that kind of stuff. So how do you help dogs kind of maintain contact while still moving in a way that's, you know, fluid and natural.

Melissa Breau: It. Is it about placement of reinforcement? Is there. Is there more to it? Like, what are we thinking about there? It's really about reward placement. That's a huge part of it. I don't think it's the whole picture. Like, there. There's definitely handler mechanics that go into place with it as well. Like, you have to be savvy about what you can do as well. But that reward placement, we can kind of play around with it quite a bit.

So again, I think the handler mechanics matter a lot. Like, what is the handler really capable of doing? Like, are they better feeding with food? Are they people that have a little bit more of a repertoire with toys or remote reinforcers? Like, what is their marker system look like for this dog? Do they have a vast marker system where we can kind of play around with? So all that kind of matters in the picture of kind of helping and troubleshooting through us, kind of getting clarity in that shoulder to leg contact point and how quickly we progress and whether the dog actually understands the criteria.

And it's going to matter in affecting its fluency, really. So I spend a lot of time splitting movement into very small pieces initially, forward movement, lateral movement, backwards movement, rather than trying to immediately create long chain of behavior. So kind of looking at each directional piece and explaining it that way to the dog. Outside of sports work, you know, somebody doesn't want necessarily to do a bite sport where, you know, they might actually need this behavior as their sports performance.

Melissa Breau: Where do you find yourself using this? Where do you find contact healing, you know, useful, especially like in everyday life? I honestly use contact heeling every day. Like it is probably one of the behaviors that I, I will cue my dogs every day. Like if you'll see behaviors that we, we often, you know, like sit things that we ask our dogs of on a day to day basis.

Contact heeling is one of those for my dogs. So crossing roads, you know, when we're on a walk and I need to navigate, you know, whether it's a busy road, whether it's a road that's not so busy, like I'm putting my dogs in that contact heel and, and, and so that we're not again running across the street or, you know, having a dog that's, you know, pulling you across a big road.

So crossing roads, moving through busy environments. So your car parks, I'm trying to think of other places. The park I go to, there's a portion of the park where it is quite busy with bikers, with, you know, kids on scooters. You have a lot of dogs coming in and out of the park, a lot of people walking. That's a busy environment. And so for those pieces, I can, you know, during those high traffic moments, I can ask my dog to come into a contact heel.

And you know, we can navigate our way through those, those big traffic areas as well. Some, some people can use it during hiking. You know, you're on a hiking trail and you come across another human and dog on the hiking trail and you want to kind of get your, your dog back with you for a moment. You know, instead of putting them on leash, you could put them into a contact heel.

I think navigating tight spaces, as I said, you know, anywhere that you're like, okay, there's, there's something there, there's something over there, there's something, you know, right in front of us. We need some, some way to navigate out of this contact heel is my, my go to. And, and I also really like it for behavior work because it gives dogs something clear and structured to do without requiring them to visually disengage from the environment.

So, you know, if you got a dog that is dog reactive and you just so happen to have a dog that is. Is, you know, you know, five feet away from you. And they're huffy and they're puffy, and you're like, I don't want my dog to, you know, be checking those vibes. You can put them into a contact heel. And again, there's that. That whole connection piece, like, I'm with you, you're safe.

Let's navigate our way out of that. And they still have the ability to check their environment so that they can kind of feel safe about it as well. Sometimes we can, you know, take their attention away from those moments. And sometimes it's necessary, but sometimes it's also that feeling of being safe when something is, you know, making them feel not, you know, that's going to be really kind of important for them so the dog can still look at the world, you know, while remaining connected to the handler.

So that's really anything that you can think of in everyday life. You could possibly ask your dog for contact heel. I know I specified everyday life, but I'm even thinking about, you know, if you're waiting in line to do agility or you're, you know, queuing up for your obedience run, or like. Like those moments where you kind of need your dog with you to know where your dog is, to be aware of the scenario.

It's a tight space, lots of people and dogs. But also, like, you're not quite doing the sport thing yet. I can totally see how it'd be useful. So I use it for nose work. A to B behavior for nose work. It's one of the pieces that, as, you know, a nose work coach, I get a lot of inquiry about, you know, how do I get my dog from the car to the search?

Like, my dog is crazy. They're at the edge of the leash. They're so excited to get to the search. Well, do you have a ready to work behavior and part of your ready to work behavior, what is your A to B behavior to get your dog from the car to that search? And a lot of people don't have that, you know, a lot of people don't have a loose leash walk, you know, and they're like.

And I personally don't want to add that much obedience of a focus. Heel in nose work. I think that, you know, sometimes a sport like that can use a little bit of less obedience. We want the dog to be engaged in the environment, not on us. And so contact heel is what I use. I get my dogs out of the car. They are ready to work and once their ready to work protocol is towards the end and I know that I have a dog that is truly ready to work.

I ask for that A to B behavior and that's how we navigate our way from search to search so that it's, it's something that I use and I do think that it's, it could be valuable across many different sports, getting in and out of the, you know, different rings. Yeah, so we're talking about this, as you mentioned, because there's a class. So you're offering a new class for FDSA, Contact heeling, a functional transportation skill coming up in June.

Tell me a little more about the class. You know, who might want to sign up. What are you covering? Give me all the details. Yeah, the class is really designed for a broad audience. I don't, you know, we'll be covering where the behavior came from in ring sports and how it was traditionally used. But the main focus is teaching the skill progressively and functionally. It's not going to have, you know, a huge.

I don't want people to look at contact heeling and be like, oh, all that. That's for the bitey dogs. It's like I said, it can be so useful for so many. So we'll start teaching the contact point itself, like I mentioned earlier, where I would start with the shoulder to leg and then we'll gradually add movement. We'll talk about reinforcement strategies, we'll talk about environmental challenges and real world applications.

You know, some of the fun things that you kind of see in the use of this, this, this skill in say mondioring, you know, you see, you know, the dog with the handler and the handlers pushing a wheelbarrow or having to lift things like that's all fun training and it's proofing essentially for this skill. So we'll, we'll talk about how to, how to kind of add some of those components to really make sure that the contact behavior is, is being established and is, is something again, that's going to be functional, functional in the real world.

So we're not going to just put you, you know, in a car park and say, go ahead at it. Here's, you know, set up your contact heel. There's going to be steps in between and those steps in between are going to be fun training. They're going to really, you know, it's going to be creative. You're going to be able to, you know, find things that are around your house and say, maybe let's try this and see if the dog can maintain the behavior towards the end.

You know, we'll kind of talk about a fun little exercise where again, the sport, the behavior itself was kind of used for in ring sports, which is defensive handler. We'll kind of talk about a little fun ways to kind of add that in for anybody. Like, you don't have to have a bitey dog. You don't have to have a dog that is, you know, toy driven. You can teach that with food.

And it could be something fun just to, to say, hey, look at how cool my dog is. You know, they'll, they'll orbit around me while, you know, somebody is kind of in front of them and kind of enticing them with, you know, food or a toy. So there, there will be little bits and pieces in there. But again, it's, it's not just for people who are doing ring sports.

Essentially this is broader than that. So I think the class will appeal to sports handlers, behavior focused trainers, you know, pet owners, you know, it's, it's not a hard skill to teach. And like I said, it can be so beneficial, beneficial in everyday life. The skill is so adaptable. So whatever, you know, as you move through the world with your dog, you, you know, and you don't want to necessarily rely on constant verbal cues like, you know, whatever your loose leash walking is or that visual attention.

I think this class will possibly resonate with you. That is awesome. And I'm so excited that you're teaching this. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast to talk to us about it. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for the class and to see how teams apply the skill in different ways. Awesome. And thank you to all of our listeners and our viewers for tuning in.

We'll be back next week, this time with guest host Crystal Wing to talk to me about my upcoming recall class at fdsa. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast either on itunes or the podcast app of your choice or over on YouTube to make sure you never miss an episode. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast.

Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!