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D3000: Master Your Ready Position - Focus on Heel for Retriever Sports!

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D3000: Master Your Ready Position - Focus on Heel for Retriever Sports!

Course Details

3 WEEK CLASS - No matter what sport you play, you have a Ready Position. Your dog knows that getting in position is what turns on the game! Or at least, that's the goal.

When your dog learns that this position turns on the fun, you have a super power with amazing applications.
For Retriever Sports, it's heel position, but maybe yours is a down or a "middle" like for dock diving.

I use it in higher level retriever sport work. You can use it for getting your dog from the car into the park. Or any other fun activity that makes your dog want to pull you over, to get there faster.

It all starts with establishing the Position. And then teaching our dog that getting in position earns the thing they want to do. Once we have that, we can add duration, distance and big distractions, like super fun retrieves.

If you build that position in the right way, it has amazing side benefits. Like waiting for your release word, no matter what kind of temptation is happening. And like moving with you in heel position, no matter how awesome the destination looks!

This class shows how to:

  • Establish a heel position for retriever work. (You can use other positions for this class.)
  • Get crazy good steadiness based on that Position
  • Turn Heel Position into walking heel
  • Walking with Impulse control when moving toward huge temptations

In my sport of retriever field testing, Heel Position is critical! It lines the dog up to see the right retrieve, it lines the dog up to go out for a blind, it gets me from the holding blind to the performance line with impulse control and it creates amazing clarity for steadiness while objects fly through the air!

The technique taught in this class makes it possible to add precision layers of criteria to help you achieve this and more. Where would you love to have your dog offer a position to start the fun?

In this class, we start at the beginning of the process and go layer by layer, together!

Teaching Approach:

Each week we cover the lessons as listed in the syllabus. You will get video demonstration lessons with written descriptions and homework. 

Gold and Silver level participants can submit your questions and any video homework for feedback from me. Bronze level participants can follow the work of the Gold and Silver students and can post in the Bronze forums to get feedback from fellow Bronze

Jennifer HenionInstructor: Jennifer Henion

Jennifer Henion (she/her), KPA CTP has been playing and studying the US retriever sports for 13 years with 6 different dogs. All of whom have achieved Hunt Test titles....(Click here for full guest instructor bio)

Syllabus

View Full Syllabus

Week One: 

  • -Shaping a great Heel Position with specific criteria. 
  • -Custom sized mat to create a straight forward aligned spine. 
  • -Build the behavior of coming into heel position from different angles

Week Two:

  • -Steadiness / Impulse control: using heel position to shape steadiness
  • -How to fade the mat target and still get great precision position

Week Three:

  • -Walking Heel - how to use heel position to create walking heel
  • -Premack Heel - Get impulse control when walking toward or past, big temptations

Prerequisites and Equipment

Equipment: For week one, shaping the heel position, you will need a 2 to 3 inch tall mat that is cut to the size of your dog's width and depth while sitting down. 

Please see the short video below to see how I recommend making a heel mat at home. 

Cato or other pre-made platforms DO NOT work for this. They are typically too wide and long to serve as an effective target to achieve the criteria we want. 

Pre-Reqs:

It helps if you have taught your dog the impulse control games with food. Such as the "It's Yer Choice" games by Susan Garrett. I have included a compilation video of my version of these games, below. They will also be part of the week one material.

Registration

GOLD LEVEL $149 - Students may ask instructors questions and post up to six minutes of video per week for instructor feedback.  Access to all class materials and can post to class forums. 

SILVER LEVEL $99 - Students may ask general questions in the discussion forum and post ONE 90 second video per week (3 total) for instructor feedback. Access to view all class materials and class forums. 

BRONZE LEVEL $49 - Students have access to all class materials and may view all class forums.  

For additional details on enrollment levels please view our Getting Started section on our Help Page.

Three week class will start November 1st and end November 21st, 2026. 

Registration opens October 22nd at 10:00am Pacific Time.

 

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