21. Stand

21. STAND

LEVEL TWO

Dog Stands from a Sit or Down with no more than two cues - two voice cues, or a voice cue and body language, or body language and a hand signal, or voice cue and hand signal, etc.

DISCUSSION: Stand is thought of as an ephemeral behaviour – Down people can understand: keep the body in contact with the floor. Stand seems to be defined but what it isn't: it isn't Sit, it isn't walking. The problem with Stand, though, is criteria. In fact, Stand is a very definite behaviour. Four feet NOT MOVING and butt off the floor. That's it. If ONE foot moves, bingo, it's not a Stand any more.

What's Stand for? The classic answers are being examined by the vet and not sitting in puddles. But it doesn't stop there, of course. Stand is the beginning of conformation stacking. A required behaviour in obedience and Rally trials. Necessary for grooming. A foundation behaviour of drafting. Gives the dog a faster go off the agility start line than sitting.

EASY BEGINNINGS: The classic way to teach Stand is to lure the dog forward until she's standing, then try something (maybe putting your hand under her belly) to keep her standing. Forget it. This is clicker training! It's easier than that. The easiest way is simply to catch it. Carry your clicker and a pocketful of treats around and click when you see her standing. This should be fairly easy: if she doesn't stand, she's probably… um… dead?

You can lure it too, but don't lure forward. Put a treat right up to her nose, then slide it quickly down to her chin and along her jawline towards her throat. If she twists sideways to get it, move it to keep her straight. She'll engage her rear , pop it backwards and up so she can back up to get the treat. DON'T let her con you into moving the treat DOWN – that's LOOKS like a Down because it IS a Down. Keep it right along her lower jaw. Click when her butt pops up. Remember to get rid of the treat in your lure hand as quickly as you can. Also don't let her con you into moving it to one side or the other so she can get it by turning her head. Keep it nice and straight, heading right for her throat.

OK, you're luring. Why is THIS lure better than luring her forward? Because when she's going forward, her centre of gravity is in a position where it's easy for her to sit. Luring forward makes her body want to sit. When she's backing up, she shifts her centre of gravity to make it easy to stand. Luring backwards makes her body want to stand.

Stand is an interesting behaviour because it lends itself equally well to all three ways of getting behaviour. To shape it, simply start shaping the dog to back up. Backing up, as I explained, naturally produces a Stand. Spend the first few sessions clicking either front foot for moving backwards even slightly. When the dog is regularly offering front paw movement in the right direction, wait for either back paw to move backwards. Later you can separate this into backing up AND Stand.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

WHEN I LURE, SHE JUST GOES BACKWARDS! Lovely, athletic dog! You're clicking too late if she's walking backward – she can't walk backward without FIRST standing up! On the other hand, if she's SCOOTING backwards without actually engaging her back legs first, start with her tail in a corner so she can only back up a foot or so. Let her duck and bend and try to get the treat, but the only way to get it off her throat is to move her throat out of the way, and the only way to do that is to stand up.

WHEN I LURE, SHE LEAVES HER BUTT ON THE FLOOR AND ROLLS OVER BACKWARDS! Generally this happens to young, fast-growing big dogs who don't really know where their feet are yet, but sometimes it happens to perfectly normal dogs who just don't think of taking their tails on the trip. Once she's rolled back so she's sitting on her tail, she can't stand up even if she tries. She's gone backwards and left her back end behind. In this case, lure her forward FIRST to get her standing, THEN lure backwards to set the position. Click any weight shift backwards, or any step backwards.

I TRIED TO SHAPE BACKING UP, BUT SHE ONLY GOES ONE STEP AND STOPS! Ah, grasshopper, you were clicking the stop! The thought goes like this: "Oh, I guess that's as far as she's going to go, I guess I better click!" Nyuh uh, too late. When you're teaching a MOVING behaviour, like backing up, click the MOVING, **NOT** the stopping! (And note that we're working on Stand here, she doesn't have to move backwards. If she takes one step, she IS Standing!)

ADDING A CUE: Luring the Stand with your hand going under her jaw produces a lovely hand signal that looks rather like an aborted chop from her nose to her throat. Move this signal gradually up into the air so you can give it while you're standing up.

For a voice cue, either get her volunteering the Stand and tell her what the cue is, or use the voice cue first, FOLLOWED by the hand signal, until she starts anticipating the hand signal when she hears voice cue.

My dogs seem to have a very hard time with the word "Stand". They hear the S and before I get to the T, they're Sitting. My cue to back up is Out, so I started asking for that first, then whispering Stand while they were drifting to a stop. Out stand. As you can imagine, this quickly became Outstanding! and I've been using it ever since.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: With a L2 dog, you probably started this behaviour with the dog in front of you and facing you. Can you get it with the dog in front of you and facing your right hand? Your left hand? With the dog beside you? You're going to need a shaped trick in L3 – how about backing up?

LEVEL THREE

Dog Stands from a Sit on one cue only. Note that this behaviour is performed with the dog beside or in front of the handler. This is an optional behaviour which must be performed with no food for clicker in the ring or area.

DISCUSSION: Why do people go through such contortions to get a dog to Stand? It really isn't any more difficult than getting her to Sit. Two aims here, first to get the performance solidly on cue, and second to get it with no food.

EASY BEGINNINGS: You already have a Stand from Sit with two cues – probably a hand signal and voice cue. If you want to go the easy way, you can probably just drop the voice cue. If you've been using both, chances are she wasn't listening to your voice anyway. If you want to go for the voice cue, you have two options. You can either go back to the beginning – getting her to volunteer the Stand – and then start telling her what it's called, totally without using the hand signal, until she connects the two. OR you can go from where you are, but separate the two cues. Use the VOICE cue first, wait half a second, then use the signal. Dogs like one thing to follow another, so she'll soon be saying "Gosh, every time she makes that noise, she signals me to Stand! I might as well Stand when I hear that noise!" Either of these methods will work, the choice is yours.

Now to get rid of the food. Click your Stand X10. Then take all the food out of your pocket and put it on a table beside you. Get the Stand, click, and hand her a treat off the table. Gradually drift away from the table, so you have to go further and further to get the treat following the click. Continue to click the behaviour when it happens – the delay is between the click and the treat, not between the behaviour and the click. Drift toward a door. Pretty soon you'll be in a different room, having to go back to your table to get the treat each time. Think about 300-Peck while you're getting away from the treats. If she loses faith and stops giving you the behaviour, go back to the treats and start again.
Now set up a situation where you don't arrive with the treats and THEN get further from them. Put a few treats on the table while the dog is somewhere else. Go to the doorway between the two rooms with the dog, and ask for a Stand. If she does, click and go to the table to get her treats. If she doesn't, start from scratch and explain the whole thing again. When she can do that, teach her to Stand in several different locations around the house, and then start hiding treats in small containers here and there, so there's always one nearby without you having to TELL her there's one nearby.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

I LURED TOO LONG AND NOW SHE WON'T STAND UNLESS I'M HOLDING A TREAT! Change tactics. Go back to the beginning. Spend several days just catching her standing up. Make her think about the Stand as a default behaviour. Then spend several sessions sitting back and shaping the Stand by clicking her for backing up (see Level Two). Then work her until she's volunteering the Stand at every opportunity. Finally, start putting the voice cue on this volunteer behaviour.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Give the cue when you're standing, when you're sitting, when you're facing her, when she's standing beside you. Change rooms, change your distance from a treat. Start saying YES instead of using the clicker to mark the behaviour.

LEVEL FOUR

Dog Stands from Sit on one cue only with the handler 10’ away. This is an optional behaviour which must be performed with no food for clicker in the ring or area.

DISCUSSION: Adding distance. Be sure you have a very reliable response to the cue before you start moving away from the dog!

EASY BEGINNINGS: There's nothing new here except getting the same behaviour in the same way at more of a distance. When you change ONE thing, of course, you make everything else simpler, so you're going to add your food and clicker back into the equation until you have the distance behaviour reliably.

You could tie the dog's leash to a wall hook, pole, or sturdy bench, but I find that any pressure on the lead tends to make it more difficult for the dog to change positions. You might have more luck putting the dog on the other side of an exercise pen or baby gate so you can concentrate on getting the behaviour and not have to fuss about maintaining the distance you want.

Ask for the Stand. Click and treat X10. Move ONE step away from the dog, and start again. This is another good place to use 300-Peck. That is, click for one step away, click for two steps away, click for three steps away, click for… when the dog fails to respond to your cue, start back right in front of her again. Click for one step, click for two steps, etc. If you hit a plateau, you can shorten your distance again and try moving back only a couple of inches at a time instead of a whole step. Another trick is to click each distance five times before moving on to the next one.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

I'M THREE FEET AWAY FROM HER AND SHE WON'T STAND UP! Go back to her and work close again until she can do it reliably. Until she's thinking about Stand even in her sleep. Stand got to be so much of a default offering for my Stitch that at one point I had to hold her in a Sit to lift her front feet to put her harness on. Every time I reached for a foot, she'd pop into a Stand. When she's thinking about the Stand near you, go back A COUPLE OF INCHES and ask her again. Anytime she fails to respond correctly to the FIRST cue, move close to her and start again.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Can she Stand when you're sitting down? Can she Stand when you're standing? When you're lying on the floor? Before you throw a ball? Before you open a door? While you put her collar on? Play around with it a lot. Most dogs can Sit and Down, but a dog that can stand on cue at a distance is really impressive.

And of course, once she's got the Stand at the required distance, start moving your treats away from the place you normally train, and asking for a Stand when you're in other situations without the treats in evidence.

LEVEL FIVE

Dog Stands from Heeling on a hand signal only. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: Part of the Utility Signal exercise, Stand from Heel is an elegant behaviour if done the right way.

LEVEL SIX

Dog Stands from Heeling, the handler does not stop. Two cues are allowed. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: Part of the Utility Stand For Examination exercise, considered to be very difficult to teach. Thank Heaven for clicker training!

LEVEL SEVEN

Dog Stands from Down with handler 10’ away, two cues only allowed. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: This behaviour isn't part of any competition, but an interesting test of your ability to add distance to a cued behaviour.