Fidgety Stays

[wuffles]

Help! :D

My girl fidgets in her down stays. She is very in tune with what is going on around her so will take the opportunity to watch everything intently, whether that be the dogs in the next ring over, birds, kids running around, buzzing insects... anything. This means she looks in all directions, including behind her. She changes from hip to hip often. She rarely actually breaks the stay.

Any tips? I was thinking of trying to get her to rest her head on the ground during stays to see if that helped. She does do this occasionally, but not often.

[Erny]

You say that she rarely breaks the stay, which means that you worked with vigilance that enabled her to understand to not break her stays.

Often, during the course of teaching/training, dog's fidgets in the stay are forgiven, when they should not have been.

I also think that often, fidgets are the result of training that has moved too far too fast, without attention to this detail.

I think you need to go back in your teaching of the stay, adopting the attitude of a fidget = break. Provide plenty of feedback to your dog to let her know when she's doing right and when she's not doing right. I like to food treat reward very frequently throughout in these 'early' stages of training. Avoid going too far too fast to best set up your dog to win (and understand what TO do). Do this and it helps to get in quickly that a (eg) sit without fidget will get the food treat and a "good". Reduce the load of the exercise by working in close whilst you are fixing the fidget. Only once you've really proofed against the fidget would I begin to work in distance.

Also keep in mind whether anticipation of YOUR next move is causing the fidget. If it is, then you need to break down her belief system that she knows/can expect what you might do next (eg a recall; a release).

ETA: Mind you, all this provided it is known that your girl is physically comfortable and that there is no skeletal nor muscular discomfort that would cause her to fidget.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Erny

[corvus]

Excessive vigilance may be a sign that she's not entirely comfortable with her surroundings. Does she look like she needs to relax, or is she bored?

[Nik]

Annie fidgets a bit in stays too- but not to the same extent you are saying Ava does. She also constantly looks around her at what is going on. We're told in class not to "eyeball" our dog, but if I watch her she's much calmer than if I look over her head (for example). It's only the down stays that she's like this. In the sit stays she's sitting up to attention so straight. Maybe the excessive vigilance is an Aussie thing? Admittedly though, she's fidgeting less and less now that she's finally maturing

[Erny]

We're told in class not to "eyeball" our dog, but if I watch her she's much calmer than if I look over her head (for example).

I like eye contact. There's a difference (IMO) between eye-balling and eye-contact. Maybe it is a matter of interpretation, but to me "eye-balling" is a threatening glare whereas "eye-contact" is a shared mutual communication that does not involve threat. I do train so that 'my' dogs learn that just because eye-contact is broken it doesn't mean they shouldn't maintain focus nor that the 'stay' is no longer valid, but I still do like to use eye-contact to help the dog remain engaged.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Erny

[ness]

Just a quick note - I never link eye contact as a part of my stay behavior because eventually you need to disappear out of sight in the higher classes. Just something to think about.

[wuffles]

Thanks guys. To be honest I'm not sure if it's boredom or that she needs to relax. I would lean towards needing to relax as I can put her in a stay in the house and she seems comfortable. She also has a hard time relaxing in the crate at training or trials. To me she doesn't seem uncomfortable, just hypervigilant for reasons unknown

At the moment I look over her head with the occasional glance to help her remember what she's meant to be doing. If I look at her the whole time she watches very intently waiting for a command (even though I use a signal - hands behind my back - that I'm not going to ask her to do anything except stay). Like ness says, I don't really want to encourage her to make eye contact with me because it will cause problems with out of sight stays in the future.

Nik, she is better in sit stays, but she is still very attentive! She is only 18 months so it may have something to do with it.

Here is a picture of her from one of our trials in her sit stay... she was looking at me at this point, but she doesn't really lose that intensity no matter what she's looking at... you can see why it is nerve wracking for me

[Gayle.]

I don't even look at Dusty during stays, if I do she invariably breaks. She seems to think that if I look at her, I want her to do something other than stay there. If I don't look, she's happy just staying there, although she does look around a bit.

[corvus]

If it were me I would go back to the beginning and increase the reward rate massively, and decrease the duration, until she was able to hold stays comfortably, then increase the duration gradually, making sure if you get to a point where she starts looking around, you take a step back and work a shorter duration more first.

I guess it's possible she just doesn't like being away from you. I've seen dogs that get quite anxious when they are left behind, even if you're only 10 metres away. Erik is a bit like that. For Erik I needed a very, very high reward rate to begin with, and a very slow increase in distance between us. I'm doing relaxation protocol variations to get him more comfortable with it all. I don't know what Ava is like, but if Erik is being hypervigilant or restless, I can guarantee that it's the start of a bigger problem and I will regret it if I don't take the time to fix it asap. He's made me a huge believer in solid foundations. ;)

[Natsu chan]

I have collies and mine have always been trained up to open level even if they never saw a trial ring. They all had rock solid stays but being a herding breed they do like to look around and sticky beak. I reward them for not looking behind them and keeping steady. I don't teach them to focus on me because of the issues it causes with out of sight stays especially with more clingy dogs. I always vary what I do in stays I walk around and vary the time and distance in between doing more formal stays and that does help with the sticky beaking. My currently girl now sighs hugely at the 30 second mark and puts her head on the grass and waits.

Have you tried doing stays with you standing a step back behind her?

That sit stay, she looks like she is waiting. Do you use the same command for a stay as for a recall?

She's a pretty girl.

[Erny]

Just a quick note - I never link eye contact as a part of my stay behavior because eventually you need to disappear out of sight in the higher classes. Just something to think about.

Only if eye-contact is something that you've taught your dog that a reliable stay is dependent upon.

To me, eye-contact or no is something to proof for (or should I say against) just as you proof for turning your back; bobbing/laying down; running around and over; and so on. I'd rather that than know my dog would break if I made and/or held eye-contact with him. I like to work stays so that the message for the dog is as clear as it can be, that it is about waiting for the verbal command and/or waiting for the very definite visual signal.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Erny

[wuffles]

I have collies and mine have always been trained up to open level even if they never saw a trial ring. They all had rock solid stays but being a herding breed they do like to look around and sticky beak. I reward them for not looking behind them and keeping steady. I don't teach them to focus on me because of the issues it causes with out of sight stays especially with more clingy dogs. I always vary what I do in stays I walk around and vary the time and distance in between doing more formal stays and that does help with the sticky beaking. My currently girl now sighs hugely at the 30 second mark and puts her head on the grass and waits.

Have you tried doing stays with you standing a step back behind her?

That sit stay, she looks like she is waiting. Do you use the same command for a stay as for a recall?

She's a pretty girl.

During training/trials, if she is switched on she ALWAYS looks like she is waiting for something. It is useful when you want to get her attention but not so good in stays. She spends a lot of time in class staring at me and walking backwards, her favourite trick

I do use the same command in stays as recalls/SFE/COP but I keep my hands behind my back in stays and in front if another command is coming. She does know this... she doesn't take her eyes off me at all if my hands are in front. I experimented with using 'wait' and 'stay' but we use wait very casually around the house so it wasn't very successful.

We do both formal and informal stays with me in different positions, going back to her and leaving again, standing behind her, etc. She stays put when dogs break beside her.

In class today she wasn't that bad... still stickybeaking but not fidgeting so much. I will experiment with rewarding when she is being calm...

Edited May 22, 2011 by wuffles