# Trot



## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I thought this would be the best place to ask this question.... because even while I really want the trot to help with the heelwork in obedience (pacing causes more bumping and uneven heelwork), I thought you guys may know the answer best.

While walking with the guys yesterday, I glanced down at them and noticed that while I was walking at a brisk pace (I'm getting stronger again after being off regular walks this past winter), Jacks was trotting effortlessly and Bertie was pacing. 

I somewhat know that the pacing is my fault because while I'm training him to SLOW DOWN while we are out walking, that's also been checking him every time he extends into a trot. So this is what I got. 

What I was doing yesterday was jogging lightly until I got him extending into a trot and then I praised him and marked the "trot" as I slowed both of us down to a brisk walk. 

I couldn't do that too much because of the humidity level yesterday (it was still close to 80 degrees at 9PM and you could cut the humidity) and I do not want to jog Bertles just yet because he's in that "danger zone" at 8 months. 

I never really went through this with Jacks, though I remember him pacing at the same age as well for the same reasons. The reason why he trots nicely now is because he's had a lot of off leash time on walks to build up whatever muscles memory he needs. Or something like that.

Bertie does trot when he's off leash and showing off (meaning when he's _not_ in full gallop), but I want to get him so a leash nudge and looser lead gets him away from pacing like with Jacks.

How else do you condition dogs to trot?


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## Vhuynh2 (Feb 13, 2012)

Molly paces when heeling and my instructor taught me to pop her up on the first step with the leash. It really helps to get her started off on a trot -- (and this is what I found while making heeling fun) so does starting off with a single "skip". I don't know if it'd work with every dog, but it works for Molly. 

My instructor has a dog who paces and she said she worked very hard to get her to stop but in the end she believes her structure just didn't allow her to trot. The dog just recently got her OTCH.


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## Nairb (Feb 25, 2012)

Bella trots naturally, which means I have to walk very fast for her to be comfortable on casual walks. 

As for heeling, I was recently told to speed up the pace to allow her to get into her natural trot. I've had to lengthen 
my stride considerably. 


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Vhuynh2 said:


> My instructor has a dog who paces and she said she worked very hard to get her to stop but in the end she believes her structure just didn't allow her to trot.
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com App


I think that if a dog does not trot when off leash and moving on its own across the lawn or whatever.... then you might be thinking about structure.... 

Bertie has a very nice trot. He extends his legs even better than Jacks. Even when he was a fat puppy his breeder liked his movement. Whatever they saw. : All of that is off leash and on his own.

But while I have him on leash - and I've noticed this while I'm "heeling" with him too, he's quite a pacer. Because it related to the leash, I'm quite sure I've been unintentionally training him to pace. :bowl:


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## Vhuynh2 (Feb 13, 2012)

Megora said:


> I think that if a dog does not trot when off leash and moving on its own across the lawn or whatever.... then you might be thinking about structure....
> 
> Bertie has a very nice trot. He extends his legs even better than Jacks. Even when he was a fat puppy his breeder liked his movement. Whatever they saw. : All of that is off leash and on his own.
> 
> But while I have him on leash - and I've noticed this while I'm "heeling" with him too, he's quite a pacer. Because it related to the leash, I'm quite sure I've been unintentionally training him to pace. :bowl:


I wasn't implying that there might be something wrong with Bertie's structure. I just wanted to point out that pacers can make it very far in obedience.  My instructor said she honestly does not think it hurt them in the ring in any way.

I also trained Molly to pace. She didn't do this as a young pup before learning to heel (we started late). She trots naturally when off leash but when she is going at MY pace, she needs the pop to get those legs in place. I also find that when she starts off on her own on leash, she is trotting, but if we stop and start again at my discretion, she paces.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

> I wasn't implying that there might be something wrong with Bertie's structure. I just wanted to point out that pacers can make it very far in obedience.  My instructor said she honestly does not think it hurt them in the ring in any way.


Oh no - I didn't take it that way. I've heard the same thing and do agree that structure does have an impact on how well or easily the dogs move out. Both instructors I have right now do conformation with their dogs so they are more particular about how important trotting is to that overall picture, as well as helping with the heelwork.


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## Kylie (Feb 16, 2013)

I am slightly confused on the terminology. In the conformation ring, is the dog trotting, or pacing?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

^ This is a pace. If you look down, you generally can tell a dog is pacing even without bending over or moving out to see the legs. There will be a "waddling" motion. 










^ This is a trot. If you are looking down even without bending over and moving to the side, you can see a smooth stride. There is absolutely no side-to-side movement of the middle. It's just all forward movement.



^ Jacks trotting while I'm heeling him. Because he doesn't have as long a body as Bertie, it actually isn't that bad when he does pace... still I do prefer to have him trotting while heeling.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I've always heard that to cause a dog to trot, you walk along a hill - sideways to the hill, not up and down. They can't keep their balance when pacing so it forces them to trot.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Exactly what Loisiana said...


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I'll test it on our alpine hill out back....


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## Nairb (Feb 25, 2012)

If you heel at a fast enough speed, don't they kind of have to trot to keep up? 


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## KeaColorado (Jan 2, 2013)

Vhuynh2 said:


> I wasn't implying that there might be something wrong with Bertie's structure. I just wanted to point out that pacers can make it very far in obedience.  My instructor said she honestly does not think it hurt them in the ring in any way.
> 
> I also trained Molly to pace. She didn't do this as a young pup before learning to heel (we started late). She trots naturally when off leash but when she is going at MY pace, she needs the pop to get those legs in place. I also find that when she starts off on her own on leash, she is trotting, but if we stop and start again at my discretion, she paces.
> 
> ...


We have this same problem, glad I'm not the only one. I think it's because I trained Kea to heel before I knew the difference between pacing and trotting. She's a lazy heeler and does a lot of pacing. If I speed up, she lags. We're working on that with target training (she targets my hand) - when she lags, I stick my hand down and she will speed up to touch it with her nose. Hopefully I'm not shooting myself in the foot by doing that. I could probably get away with putting the hand down in rally but not regular obedience. I have also found that she's less likely to pace when she's looking up at me. I know it's not a structure issue because she will trot all day long off leash on a hike. She is a tad long in the loin, so when she paces, she's got quite the swagger.


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## Vhuynh2 (Feb 13, 2012)

Nairb said:


> If you heel at a fast enough speed, don't they kind of have to trot to keep up?
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


I noticed in your videos that you are very tall so your stride is probably much longer than mine. I'm 5'3" and I have to really speed walk to keep up with her natural trot. 


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## Vhuynh2 (Feb 13, 2012)

KeaColorado said:


> We have this same problem, glad I'm not the only one. I think it's because I trained Kea to heel before I knew the difference between pacing and trotting. She's a lazy heeler and does a lot of pacing. If I speed up, she lags. We're working on that with target training (she targets my hand) - when she lags, I stick my hand down and she will speed up to touch it with her nose. Hopefully I'm not shooting myself in the foot by doing that. I could probably get away with putting the hand down in rally but not regular obedience. I have also found that she's less likely to pace when she's looking up at me. I know it's not a structure issue because she will trot all day long off leash on a hike. She is a tad long in the loin, so when she paces, she's got quite the swagger.


At least you can fix the pacing. Molly does not lag, is very perky when heeling, and her eyes are always on me, but she still paces.  The leash pop does help but I don't want that to become a habit and potentially mess up her "start". 

As for the lagging -- I wouldn't rely on the hand touch. I would build drive and reinforce heel position. 


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## Nairb (Feb 25, 2012)

Vhuynh2 said:


> I noticed in your videos that you are very tall so your stride is probably much longer than mine. I'm 5'3" and I have to really speed walk to keep up with her natural trot.
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com App


Well, I'm only 5'11", but I will confess that I was wondering today what I would do if I were 5'3". 

Our heeling pace is pretty fast now.


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## Nairb (Feb 25, 2012)

duplicate post


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## CarolinaCasey (Jun 1, 2007)

Why is pacing undesirable on a leash walk? 

Why is pacing undesirable on a competitive level (obedience)? 

When I leash walk my guys, if we are going slow they pace but if we move faster they trot. When we work obedience, I get nice attention and the dog throws his front legs out in a bouncy trot to watch my face. Is that what you're trying to attain? I would think that if you focused on attention while heeling, the trot would come naturally. 

I'm new to obedience so take all of this with a grain of salt. I am truly curious. 


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

I have never thought about pacing in obedience... But it is a major no no in conformation. I have been leash walking my guys at lunch when I am at work. I have noticed that almost nine year old Tiki paces when Gabs and Basil are trotting. However, when I gait Tiki, she trots. She is a Can/UKC Ch and has OFA hip and elbow clearances...


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## TheZ's (Jun 13, 2011)

When the dogs are heeling in obedience they look a lot better if they're trotting. I find Zoe seems to pick up on my energy level as well as pace. I can get her into a trot with my doing a quick energetic pace even better than a longer stride and I've gotten to recognize that slight bounce that indicates she's trotting. I've heard that some people work with a metronome and I've seen a video of a trainer heeling to music with a pronounced beat.

eta: If you heel your dog at a quick energetic pace it not only looks better it's easier to keep the dog's attention focused on you. When we're moving slowly Zoe has a tendency to loose focus.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

CarolinaCasey said:


> Why is pacing undesirable on a leash walk?
> 
> Why is pacing undesirable on a competitive level (obedience)?
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Oh no - I agree. With leash walks I don't really care if the dogs pace. It's just when I walk faster or more briskly, they should be moving on into a trot like with Jacks. If they are still pacing at a faster pace like I saw with Bertie - icky.  Because he's longer in the waist area than Jacks is (I _think_ that's the difference? They both are 24" from shoulder to rear, but Bertie looks longer bodied somehow), it looks terrible when he paces. 

For obedience - like I said, my two instructors also do conformation and do not like seeing pacing dogs. Adele somewhat pointed out what I said earlier than the heeling is cleaner with a trotting dog. She did say the same thing that V pointed out though, that some dogs just prefer to pace if it's easier. It's acceptable, but not preferable. At least according to her. 

For conformation dogs - I understand that when you do obedience or even just walking with your dogs - you never want to allow them to pace ever. Because it does become habit. 

I have a neighbor who breeds English Setters and is actually high up in the club? She does not leash walk her dogs because of the whole pace/trot thing. Her husband either bikes with the dogs, or she has them all off leash on walks (which is remarkable when you see 5-6 sleek setters coming down the street).

I think what somebody told me too is that you should not have to be jogging or encouraging your dog to haul forward to maintain that trot. They should be able to be trotting at a brisk walk. 

With Bertie, I had to get into a jog to encourage him to trot. It could have been the heat/humidity... and the fact he does not have the same muscles and strength that Jacks does. Because Jacks swims, hikes offleash, and does all the jump training for obedience - he has pretty solid muscles and is very agile even with the heat. Bertie will get there - he's still my little lump of sugar.  

I just wondered what alternatives to jogging people use....


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

I do not find that a dog in a pace can turn as efficiently, so that could impact scores in the obedience ring. 

Other tricks for breaking a dog out of a pace are to make a very quick left turn into the dog, or to make your start off line very fast. It is one reason some people do a coutesy turn in conformation--not for courtesy to the judge, but to keep the dog from pacing!

Cavaletti work will also help break a dog of the habit (for some it does just become habit as they build muscle memory with a preferred movement) as they cannot pace and maintain balance going over properly spaced cavaletti poles. They do not need to be high (some people I know use 4" PVC pipes painted white), just properly spaced for the dog's size, so that they have to lift their foot over the obstacles.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Thanks Shelly<:


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