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Having Problems With The Stand Position


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Can anyone give me pointers, I am having problems with the stand position on my boy. He is perfect when it comes to automatic sits, but when I give him the command stand he is very unsure and gets a little nervous. I have never taught him to stand before, Sunday was the first time.

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From time to time I think about returning to intermittent obedience trials.

As I have concentrated on retriever training and trialling, stand has never been taught. They have the sitting response/habit well entrenched.

I found teaching stand pretty frustrating as a result, with my older dogs. I found teaching stand easier when having them at a sit and luring the stand with moving the reward upwards and slightly forward. Reward when standing still...otherwise you may like I have, dogs jumping to a stand. Looks great..but rather silly.

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Glad you have got things going your way. Patience is a virtue in dog training sometimes.

A method that I like involves giving the signal, and if the bum starts to go down, keep creeping into a slow motion heel until he almost comes to a slow motion stop (stand), and giving heaps of feedback to the dog.

Hands under the dog can fail as often as they work in my experience. Few dogs like the experience of you hovering over them. A left handed signal is helpful to distinguish it from a stay signal too.

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Sorry to ask an OT question, but what does everyone use as a hand signal for stand? I've seen a couple of different ones and I was wondering if there is one that is considered the 'proper hand signal (for obedience competition).

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I use left hand (palm facing dog) in a sweeping motion. There are no right or wrong signals though, as long as they are not double ones, or exagerated/drawn out ones. (and they work!)

ETA: Its helpful to be thinking about how your signals will tie in with the requirements of the higher levels though, otherwise you will have to do some retraining.

Edited by dogdude
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I have been having trouble with teaching a solid stand to my kelpie, so Im glad I found this thread!

I think I might give the stand from a sit a go - as the way we have been going, is just from a heel and she immediately goes into a sit! Sometimes she "gets" it, but most not, so I think she is still quite confused about what I want from her.......

As for the hand signal, I use the palm across the front of the dog (right hand, palm facing toward dog). Im sure Ive seen someone, somewhere use a flat hand at the top of the dogs head, cant remember where tho. Ooh, just saw ness' reply - thats who it was I think, Ptolomy.

With my ridgie, who was also trained for the show ring - never had trouble getting a stand! Which is helpful, as I get her to "stand" for lots of things - ear cleaning, nail trimming, teeth cleaning. More horse like than a dog really. ;) ;)

Rat

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I use the same signal as dogdude.

I did get frustrated and left one club because they kept telling me my signals were wrong and I had to do all signals with left hand, and I do some signals (drop and stay) with right hand. I thought that was strange as every other club I have been to did it the same way as me, and I was pretty sure it didn't matter which hand you used.

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I use a hand held palm up then lifted upwards (the opposite of my down signal, which is a flat hand held facing down, swept downwards). Not sure if that's proper or not, but the dog seems to understand. ;)

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I have found that this afternoon doing stand training with Kyran that he stands better off lead than on lead. So I am heading down to Sutherland tonight, not for club training, but some practice with him with distractions around.

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I've done something wrong now. Tonight he wont do his automatic sits, instead he stands like a dog that has no idea what a automatic sit is.

Stands were really good, only had to correct him once. And he stayed in the stand position offlead... Training is going fantastic with him seeing we only joined the club on Sunday. YIPPEE :D

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You haven't done anything wrong - what you describe is quite a normal occurrence. It is only that you have been concentrating and repeating the stand so much (and of course rewarding them) that your dog has figured out the "stand" gets him the good stuff.

So all you need to do is randomise the sit and the stand for him to get the idea that if he complies with the respective commands he'll receive his rewards. Randomising also helps your dog to understand there is a difference between the two commands.

You might need to take a step back in your training for the "sit" (for example, guide him into the sit) and then give a reward, for the first one, but he should after that catch on :cheer:.

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Maybe with time you will appreciate the standard of sch dogs you have seen on weekend where they do a stand in motion with no hand signals :cheer:

I taught my dogs to do a kickback stand, luring with food onto their chest. I do changes of positions from drop to sit to stand or drop to stand etc in all sorts of combinations, and I try not to use hand signals only voice (which is obviously more difficult for the dog)

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This is a useful thread. We have problems in obedience class because Molly doesn’t like her hind quarters being touched (we think she was hit in her previous home) and gets very wriggly and jumps around. In class when we’re asked to stand our dog we are told to run our hand along the length of the body. Not easy on a wriggling dog! She is very good on automatic sits etc but stand is going to stop us ever progressing to the next class I fear!

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Erny, I will try and do some random stuff to see if it comes back to him. I really want the OH coming home in a couple of weeks and we are at a standard ready for his CCD. If not, I will just have to explain that i didn't understand :D But I think he would want to kill me!

He is going extremely well considering he has never done obedience with a club before, and its only been 5 days. :mad

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