There is an art to training a dog to heel on a leash. Regardless of what you see on movies made for television or the theatre, there's more to heeling than just hooking up a dog up to a leash, and letting it walk in front of you down the sidewalk.

In fact, when training a companion dog, heeling means that the dog walks to the left side of the guide, not in front, and not pulling wherever it wants to go. Plus there's more. There should be no straining, tugging, pulling ...nada on the leash.

To get a grip on training in this manner, here are some simple steps to follow:

1) Fasten a good, strong leash of roughly three feet in length to the dog's collar or a special training collar if necessary.

2) At first, you will teach the dog to follow closely along your left side, as per commands that are replaced by signs and signals later on, similar to nudging a horse with the left reign in order to head left.

3) You will use your left hand alone to control the leash. And your goal with this activity is to guide only. Correctly handle the leash for the HEEL command by:

a) Learn to make this sign: lightly slap your left hand against your left leg, saying "HEEL." You will repeat this throughout the exercise, speaking distinctly and slowly.

b) The dog should then walk close beside you, with its shoulder near your left knee.

c) Hold the leash in your right hand, hand dropped

at your side.

d) Give the SIGN learned above with your left hand. Then grab the leash near the collar, hold your hand close to the left side with a loose grip so that your hand may go lightly back and forth (in case you might need to shorten or lengthen the leash)

e) Begin at a fast walking pace, not a run. Keep the dog's head up, facing ahead.

f) Your dog may react with any of the following motions / actions: it may try to try to pull away, to stop, to sit down or do nothing, to forcefully pull ahead or to pull to a side or backwards. With any of these, it means you are giving the dog too much leash or that you've moved the leash into the other hand or somehow mixed up your leash / hand movements. So go back to basics and readjust your position.

Note: with a large dog, have your hand near its collar. With a smaller dog, your hand can be farther away from the collar.

g) When you come to curbs, after verifying that there is no traffic, step off the curb quickly and do not stop even if the dog resists. Don't look all around or even at the dog, just shorten the leash as needed and continue to walk ahead, taking the dog along with you.

There are no perfect dogs. And there is no perfect heeling on the leash training, either. Tips for issues you may run into include:

- If the dog dallies too far behind, change the leash to the right hand, while still keeping it at your left side. Let the leash drop a tiny bit in front of you so that your steps gently tug on the collar.

- Practice your heel exercises when the dog is alert and peppy. If the dog is not well rested or is stressed or unhealthy, the activities may not fare as well. And you don't want a slow, sluggish dog with a boring walking activity. Neither the dog nor you will enjoy it much!

On the return home, make sure to fill up those dog bowls. Give your dog a good drink of water and a little dog food if your pet is hungry.