Hi Alex, when will you be offering the heel work hackers course. Cheers Karen

Hey Team - in this video I show recorded the first session of everyday heelwork (this is NOT focus heelwork we have in the course HH -even though there are some similarities) Even though later on I want my dog to walk with the head down looking at the environment I start with the dog looking at me (face). Reason? dogs are learning placement shoulder-leg on the left much faster as they are much more focused. Also keeping this level of focus (dog looking at our face constantly) is simply not sustainable as dogs cannot walk like that on long distances. Therefore as I progress I allow my dog to look wherever they want and look at me only if I say their name. Teaching dog to switch back and forth look wherever you like - look at me has some practical advantages especially with reactive dogs at early stages of their training or easily distracted dogs. When I walk past the trigger eye contact with the trigger eg. other dog is much more confrontational. I can simply ask my dog hey look at me, your safe with me, you don't have to deal with that. Similar thing we do in our human world - we don't make deep eye contact with other people walking past. Then if someone is staring at us ( that make at least me bit uncomfortable) we often look away or look at the phone to avoid confrontation. With my dogs I want the to look at me and get my support when walking past triggers before they are ready to just ignore them. I will also do that with my perfectly friendly and social dogs- when walking past distractions I will often ask them to look at me so they are less tempted :) Let me know if you have any questions! ps. I have spaniel for residential training now- one of the goals is to teach street heeling. I'm tempted to document that. Shall I?

hey guys this is the recording of the last night's q&a. we cover couple of topics like news and what is coming to this community, importance and essence of impulse control, biting hands and communication during play, general confidence training and bit of fear reactivity.

Hi All, I am in Australia and currently it's darn hot. It's difficult to get out and train but we had a cool change yesterday so I got to do a bit with my mad red head Shine. We are way out of practice but it was good to do a bit yesterday. We have mainly been swimming together each day in our 40 deg temps and then chilling out inside together.

I’m finishing Play with Purpose – Second Edition, which builds on the original challenge and goes deeper based on real implementation and the questions that came up from you. Because you’re inside this community, you’ll get free access to the Second Edition when it’s released. Here’s where I need your help. If you’ve already been through Play with Purpose and it changed how you use play, motivation, or structure in training, I’d appreciate a short, honest review. Nothing polished. Just: - where you were before - what shifted - what you do differently now You can leave it here: https://g.page/r/CeTWEis3qMEnEAE/review or in the comments or by email. If you’re also waiting for Heelwork Hackers, community members will get priority access and a loyalty discount when it opens! Thanks to everyone who’s been in this early group — your feedback directly shapes what I build next. — Alex