Stand-Stay Practice Session 1 (Patreon)

(read first)

Ya'll, good training is boring. It's not flashy, or particularly entertaining. It's slow progress, broken down into tiny steps, towards an ultimate goal. So, I won't be too offended if you watch this one at 1.5 speed ;) 

In this video (and the series of videos after) I will be training the stand-stay. When thinking about the stay, the down-stay is easiest and always what I recommend if you want a longer stay. You want to think about the energy it takes for the dog to move out of position, and when it comes to stay, the down requires the most energy to leave position, the sit stay requires a little less energy to get up from, and the stand-stay requires almost no energy to leave position (literally just walk one step and you're no longer in the stay). So stand stay is not something I have worked on, as it's not something I've had an application for. But, after having no ability to do this behavior with Whip in my last rally class when a sign directed me to do it, now I do! 

I wanted to show you a totally unedited, thought-process oriented training session. I also wanted to show you how I use props to make my life, and the dog's understanding much easier. Watch me troubleshoot some errors that come up, observe the dog's behavior, and create a new strategy mid-session. While this video is about my beginning stages of the stand-stay, it is very relevant to anyone teaching any sort of stay. The process is the same. When I teach a down-stay or sit-stay, I also use a platform, and you'll be able to see here twice where the platform catches the dog about to walk out of the stay and reminds her to stay in place. It does the work for me. I like that. 

So in this video you'll watch a breakdown of my first two stand-stay session as I tackle a new endeavor with CoolWhip which is Rally Obedience. A long time ago, with Jake, I attended exactly one Competition Obedience class. And while Jake was good at it, I hated the idea of not being able to talk and reinforce my dog during competition. Rally is totally different. In rally you can talk to, encourage, and interact with your dog. It's a competition where you progress through a series of signs that give you behaviors to do with your dog. And while I don't know a ton about it yet, I thought it would be fun to learn together and watch me work on a new skill. 

Honestly, I went to Rally to start educating myself on obedience competition, as I think I would like to get into that with my next dog. I'm not a particularly competitive person. I've competed in disc, herding, barn hunt and dabbled in a few other sports, but I never stay in them for long. Honestly, I find waiting my turn to do a three minute run twice in a day excruciatingly painful. That means that I may or may not ever end up competing with Whip, but I love the challenge (and consistency) or going to a class and learning new skills. 

Also,I wouldn't call Whip an "obedience" dog. She doesn't like being tight to my side and she's incredibly sensitive to pressure. However, she surprised me with how much fun she had, so we'll be going back as long as I find that she's enjoying herself! 

If you'd like to learn more about Rally you can check out this video here: 

(thanks Christina for finding it for me!) 

And I hope you enjoy watching me work/stumble through training new skills and learning a new type of competition! Learning something new (especially as a trainer) can give me BIG FEELINGS. It's okay to be nervous/scared/anxious about trying something new. Getting out of our comfort zone is ... uncomfortable. I have those feelings often. We can train through them together :) 

Happy training!