How Can I Teach My Puppy To Keep Still?

[TheNoseKnows]

I have been taking my 6 month old to shows to get him used to the experience. We've been to indoor and outdoor shows and puppy seems to enjoy it. Goes in the ring with full body wag. Puppy does a free stack but when the judge approaches, he would lick the judge's hands and would wriggle while he is being examined. I tried baiting but his wriggling gets worse.

I want puppy to associate the show ring with fun, but I guess I want him to stand reasonably still for the judge to be able to do a full examination.

I was advised by my brother to use a stacker.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Cheers.

[shekhina]

I have had much the same problem and have stopped showing my puppy for this reason. He just loves people too much and he had no hope in hell of standing still with someone even approaching him let alone touching him!

We have started teaching him to stack on a stacker with his trainer (at home we use a mirror and 4 bricks). It has definitely helped him in learning to keep his feet still or else he falls off. He can now hold it for a decent amount of time for a baby with bait in front of him. It's still a work in progress to have someone go over him but I've found having him up off the ground certainly does help. He's still very happy to do it, tail wagging and very alert, so it isn't frightening in any way for him :)

[RuralPug]

Babies will be babies!

If your problem is he is forgetting the stack to welcome the judge, then you need to rope in someone to play judge in your training sessions.

Have the "judge" approach only to immediately about face and retreat if pup wiggles. Reset pup in stack, repeat. Keep trying until the penny drops, as it will eventually. Might take a session or two daily over a week or two but it will happen. Once the puppy is standing still while the "judge" goes over him, throw a party and make a huge fuss and greatly reward when the judge steps back, and your pup will love it!

[Dogsfevr]

Teaching a free stack & teaching the dog to stand to be examined is to separate things ,

Firstly dog is a baby so its no big deal BUT ideally you want to see progress.

Personally i am not a fan of stackers & whilst many use them well it still comes back to what you have taught pup to do at present ,what the stackers do is force the dog to stay still or it falls of the stackers ,some dogs then stack terrible because they get scared others do okay .

When the judge approaches what do you do??Do you then manually stack or just allow the free stack with no assistance .

Not sure what breed you have ?

For example in Labs mots are taught to free stack but when the judge approaches youngster handlers will take control of the head To educate the dog what is expected especially with mouthing many will still wiggle because there happy but you need to teach the middle step & to be honest all dogs should be taught to be stacked by hand which is what the stackers require even if a traditional free standing breed

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

My approach to this was for start line stays for agility.

They're fun because you can train them anywhere and the dog has to really guess whether they get to move or not.

And you'd need to add the distraction of someone coming up to give a pat etc.

1. train a collar grab - as a way to reset the dog if it moves without permission.

2. train a release cue - ie i use the word "go" but other people use "free" or "break" (as in break your stay), or "ok". "Ok" isn't always ok because you use that often in ordinary conversation and some dogs who take cues from anybody - will wander off their stay when they hear that phrase in class.

3. train a stay - start simple and close up - I used the dinner bowl as our first distraction. It was easy to control access to the reward and the reward was sufficiently high value my dog would work hard for it. Also start with really short stay times.

When they've got the idea of "stay" and "go" then you can start trying to generalise - but pick only one criteria at a time eg duration, distance (from you), location - eg in front of dinner, in front of tv, back yard, park, beach, distractions - start with you moving (dog must stay)... build up to really flappy - my dog loves being released to get my hat (that I take off my head and hold out like a baton in a relay race - do not play this game in the dusk).

Then add something else - second dog, more toys, another person...

If dog fails when you're testing with distractions, do the collar grab and put them back where you started... you might laugh at them for stuffing it up, and sometimes I say "no treat for that" in a happy tone. No scolding or Ah Ah required.

The reward depends entirely on what your dog wants most right now. Food? What kind of food?, Toy? which toy? Play? who with? etc.

And train for no more than two minutes (or 10 treats - depending on the dog) at a time - then have a play.

If you're both getting bored and frustrated - you've been trying too hard for too long. Have a play and stop.

PS - added into my criteria for a good stay (you get treat for that) - no paw movement. If the paws moved we turn the dog in a circle and start over.

PPS - reward in position. so the dog can hold the stay and get the reward. I also reward with the release cue ie get to chase me and my hat. But when we were learning - there would be four or five times I'd go back to the dog and reward to every release and chase. Any paw movement - no release and chase - and in this game - that's what my food obsessed dog wanted most - go figure.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Mrs Rusty Bucket

[Scottsmum]

You might enjoy Peta Clarke & her new puppy Raising Fly

There's a post from 14 sep on the beginnings of a stand.

For those of you who don't know Peta's work - she's done lots of impressive work but it includes being the animal trainer for Babe and Legally Blonde the musical (she owns the two chis used for the Aussie production ). I also think she's done some fre flight work with birds at Taronga.

[Rebanne]

Babies will be babies!

If your problem is he is forgetting the stack to welcome the judge, then you need to rope in someone to play judge in your training sessions.

Have the "judge" approach only to immediately about face and retreat if pup wiggles. Reset pup in stack, repeat. Keep trying until the penny drops, as it will eventually. Might take a session or two daily over a week or two but it will happen. Once the puppy is standing still while the "judge" goes over him, throw a party and make a huge fuss and greatly reward when the judge steps back, and your pup will love it!

This and don't be too harsh, the vast majority get it before too long. And teach them to handstack then while young you can help them along.

[angelsun]

I use stackers to get the basic idea but don't discourage wiggling. My almost five year old grand champion wiggles and wags the tail and tries to kiss judges. I wouldn't have it any other way. In his mind, showing is the most fun a dog could possibly have and I want to keep it that way. Judges don't mind in fact they often comment on how happy he is.