Should I stay or should I go?
This is a fun, cute video- but it’s also showing a problem! Start-line stays are not what they should be in this film- though some of the dogs do show a good stay, some of them are just not all there! Practice start line stays anytime your dog doesn’t want to wait, and eventually you will have a decent leadout before the paws thunder behind you! I ‘stay’ my dog getting out of the car, going through doorways, for breakfast, for snacks, while I’m cooking and something falls, and when we are walking through the woods! Where’s your favorite place to practice the ‘stay’?
My first agility dog, a crazy fast Belgian had start line stay problems. With my second dog I worked on a start line from the day I got her. Sit stays at doors, for her dinner, to get out of her kennel, to get a toy to play with; stays applied to everything she wanted. Dog number two has an amazing start line. Just like the original note mentions; stays are an integral part of our everyday lives.
The handlers were pretty funny, as if pushing the dog down will somehow stabilize a stay; a stay that the dog has been rewarded for breaking over and over, with predictable results.
GREAT VIDEO! I loved it. Such zeal for the run. Gotta love those Borders. My dog is great at the start line stay. So great that when it’s time to run she just sits there. (just kidding, only happened once, and NOTHING I could do would get her to budge. I had to take her collar, and you know what that means…)
My start line command is ‘wait’ (stay means don’t move until I come back for you). I tell Bandit ‘wait’ at the open front door before we go out, ‘wait’ to get out of the car, so he waits at doors, etc.
He waits very well at trials, and I can get a good lead out of two or three obtacles (depending on the layout of the course), which really helps me as I’m a lot slower than he is and I need all the advantage I can get.