Kori Bigge

I just started teaching Kodee to heel. We are starting out veerrry slowly, off-lead (in the house) with one step at a time. He is the first dog I've ever trained, and so I am learning "how" to train him, as I'm doing it, so bear with me.

Tonight I used a cut-up hotdog for his lure/reward. We started out w/him on my left side in a sit, then I said "heel", took one exaggerated step forward with my left leg, and lured him into position w/the hotdog. It worked pretty well. I literally just did one step each time, and marked and rewarded for being in the correct position. He did great, and I kept it brief, so he was still eager to train.

My question is: Is there a way to use a ball as the lure/reward? Kodee will do anything for his ball, and I normally use it as his reward when we practice commands that he's already learned. I normally use food mainly for the teaching phase. I think I saw somewhere (don't remember where) that you could drop a ball from your armpit for your dog while teaching the heel, but I have no idea if that really works. I can't see how you could do it without the dog getting totally distracted. But I wanted to ask, because if there is a way to do it, Kodee would probably be the dog to train with that method.

TIA!