In my training tip Competition Heeling Part 1, I showed my dogs asking me to go to work and to go heeling. I said I would explain how to teach this in part 2.

Teaching an activation cue is just plain fun! It gets your dog excited to go to work and to be in a high drive state before you start training. Having your dog in a working state of mind, and mentally connected is really important for them to be able to give you their best performance.

This video clip shows how I teach it from the beginning. Don’t expect this to happen overnight. My dogs have been conditioned to this so they may make it look easy. Remember to mark and reinforce any effort, and build on that, slowly asking for more before you reinforce the behaviour.