"Finish" (Lure & Mark)

toss the leash for now? add it in once the dog understands and you don't actually need the lure? and don't step back. Ever.

I knew I was doing something wrong! haha... thanks mudpuppy for the input

I need to get creative and think about this in a different way. Do you have any advice on how to picture doing this differently?

Couple of ideas come to mind, such as just using the target stick to lure the puppy around and into heel (or food but the bending over isn't great posture plus its killing my back)

 I used hand targeting until I had it on a hand cue (four targets to get into position, then three, then two, and then one that was a cue.), Then I added the word. Luna loves targeting, so that's always been a great method for her. I taught her finish right that way too, but with targets on the ground.

I didn't use a leash.  Any sort of physical manipulation like that confuses Kenya and she gets stressed.  I just put a treat in each hand and lured the dog around my back that way, switching hands about halfway around.

 Honor is only 14" tall, so she's probably close to your puppy's size.  She learned to Finish by me motioning her around me (which is her "Finish" hand signal), luring her with a treat in my right hand.  Once she started moving back, I told her to "Touch" my left hand (which was kept in heel position).   This way, the bending down was pretty minimal, and she learned to complete the Finish in the correct position.  Instead of utilizing treats in your hand, you can also use a wooden spoon with peanut butter (or some other spreadable treat) on it.  That way, when you click, you just lower the spoon. 

But as Mudpuppy said, never take a step back, you'll get nailed for an incorrectly executed exercise in competition.

Good luck!

Infiniti

 Honor is only 14" tall, so she's probably close to your puppy's size.  She learned to Finish by me motioning her around me (which is her "Finish" hand signal), luring her with a treat in my right hand.  Once she started moving back, I told her to "Touch" my left hand (which was kept in heel position).   This way, the bending down was pretty minimal, and she learned to complete the Finish in the correct position.  Instead of utilizing treats in your hand, you can also use a wooden spoon with peanut butter (or some other spreadable treat) on it.  That way, when you click, you just lower the spoon. 

But as Mudpuppy said, never take a step back, you'll get nailed for an incorrectly executed exercise in competition.

Good luck!

This is pretty much how Sioux learned, too.  To this day, she has not forgotten, either, although I seldom ask her to do it.  The swing finish was taught the same way, just lure and then target to a stick.

Okay so we practiced this last night... and I used my Target stick that he knows "Touch" with and I don't need to bend or change posture at all with it...

Now here's my questions/confusion... do I now SHAPE the behavior, or quickly Lure....

 You can elicit the behavior by shaping OR luring.  You just wait until the entire behavior is complete before you attach the cue word "finish" or whatever word you choose to use (I use two different cues - one for the finish behind, and one for the swing finish).

Okay cool so I'll see which one will work better for him.

So pretty much it's going to be...

• Target, Mark
• Target & Cue, Mark
• Cue, Mark
• Hand Signal & Cue, Mark
• Hand Signal, Mark

See the thing I like about not using Target STICKS is that by luring with my hand I can turn that hand motion into a command quicker (and same reason why the sit hand signal becomes sit... because of the moving during luring)

When I use a Target stick I'm using this tool until I can associate the action with a WORD cue... then I have to make that WORD cue into a hand signal...

Am I right???... unless I'm missing something here...

I mean either way this is going to take a little time to have him get this down because he just seems so oddly confused by it...

I learned an entirely different approach to teaching "finish" about 10 years ago, and it has worked really well for me with my dogs. I'm not saying it's a better approach, just one that I happen to like. Start with your dog in heel position (sitting or standing, whichever he prefers), and teach him to back up a step or two. Don't worry if he backs straight, and if he swings his butt in just a smidge, so much the better. Once he will back up a step or two, start turning to your right, away from him, as you back up to encourage him to swing his butt in toward you. I use a dowel to guide my dogs' butts at this stage, but I would think you could shape this behavior with a clicker if that's your preference. When he is doing this well, attach some cue like "get back" or "get in".

Once your dog will back up in a circle that requires him to swing his butt toward you, start with him in heel position, turn your body so that his butt is swung out maybe 15 degrees or so away from you, and give him his "get in" cue. Help him to swing his butt in toward you back into proper heel position. You may start out circling away from him as you did above, but your goal at this stage is to fade your movement, so that eventually when his butt is swung out, he can correct it into the "get in" position with no movement from you.

Once he has mastered going from having his butt swung out to move into proper straight heel position with your "get in" cue, you are 90 % there. From there just start him with his butt swung farther and farther out of line. Start with him in good straight heel position, move yourself so that he is 30 degrees out of position, then gradually until he is at your left side but at a 90 degree angle from a straight sit in heel position, and then gradually until he is angled ever closer to sitting at a 180 degree to a straight sit in heel position. Voila! You now have him swinging from sitting facing you in front position all the way around to sitting in perfect heel position.

Like I said, I don't necessarily think that this is inherently "better" than other methods of teaching finish. It just works really slick for me. One thing I like is that the dog never circles behind me, so there isn't that phase where the dog is behind me and out of eye contact, and sorely tempted to wander over and check out the kid eating the hot dog. And my dogs have all sort of spontaneously added their own cute little flip flourishes to this swing. They seem to really really think this is fun, whereas the dogs that I taught to finish by circling behind me just seemed to think the exercise was sort of dumb and boring.

buster, I read your post and realized when I posted I made the assumption that it was a right finish because my "finish!" command refers to a right finish and my "swing!" command is a left (flip) finish.  Oops!

I have been successful using more motion in the beginning of the behavior sequence.  I like the steps which are slowly faded because I like to have the dogs completely straighten their spines and be fully alined with me before they sit.

It is a combination of lure in the left hand for a swing or military finish  and in the right hand (with a transfer behind my back to my left hand for the finish around my body.

It starts with an exaggerated amount of space, typically 3 steps backwards and then as the dog is fully behind you, the same number of steps forward. I also like bringing the dog totally behind me so there needs to be a 180 on the dog's part.  I have found this has improved the quality of the sits over the long haul (straighter, less likelihood the dog stops behind heel position).

As the dog gets better and better, I switch from the lure to targeting.  When that is settled, I slowly start reducing the distance covered by dropping one step.  I maintain two steps until the dog is solid, slowly shrinking the distance covered in the step.  I then take two stationary steps.  By using this approach, I can shuffe my feet in place to clean up a crooked sit prior to responding to the judge's question "ready".  Sort of primes the dog to be more aware of the sits in heel position.