Almost every agility run begins with a lead-out. This a chance for the handler to move into position to handle the first few obstacles while the dog waits patiently for her turn. Or that’s how it’s supposed to go, anyway …
Breaking or creeping during lead-outs is one of the most common bad habits in agility dogs. My last dog Spring was one of the guilty. I had a lot of trouble getting a decent stay out of her in the first place. Within months of her agility debut the rot had set in – she started crawling along on her belly while I was walking away. Once I turned around to see her lying on the wrong side of the first jump, which she had crawled right up to and then underneath!
Why Do Dogs Break?
There are three common reasons why dogs break:
- Some dogs watch their handler’s body for a signal that it’s time to start. They become over-enthusiastic and interpret every slight movement of your hand or head as a green light.
- Some dogs develop a habit of fidgeting while they wait for their handler to call them. Sometimes the handler releases them while they are moving their paws, which is a huge reinforcement for them. Each repetition of this pattern encourages the fidgeting, and it evolves over time into creeping or refusing to sit at all.
- Some dogs are anxious about people and dogs walking behind them, and will break because they are too worried to stay. These dogs often turn their heads to look at what’s going on behind them before they get up. This is a less common cause of breaking, and the advice in this post is not applicable to these dogs.
Release Cues
Hopefully you have a verbal release cue to tell your dog when it’s time to start the run. Popular ones are “OK”, “Break” or a cue to jump the first obstacle. Your dog should hold her sit stay until she hears this word.
Dogs focus more on movement than on words. If a verbal cue is usually presented with a body movement, they will learn that the body movement means the same thing. This is useful sometimes – when you are running towards a tunnel and you say “Over” by mistake, your dog will probably go through the tunnel anyway.
It can really come back to bite you at the start line, though. Let’s say you always turn your head and look over your shoulder just as you are say your release cue. Or maybe you extend your arm to point to the first jump at the same time as you release your dog. Your dog will quickly learn to watch your body for these signals. Eventually every subtle movement of your head or hand will trigger your dog to take off.
Fidgeting and Creeping
Creeping is the problem that I fell victim to with Spring, and I’ve had some minor problems with Rik too. One day I turned around and she was leaning forward with her bum off the ground, but I released her anyway. A new game was born – see how close to the first jump you can get before Kate turns around!
I was not consistent about requiring a good wait, so she began to fidget and creep before most runs. By the time I realised I had a problem it was two weeks before the 2016 NZDAC. My short-term solution was to change her start position from a sit to a down, which got me through the first three days of DAC before the fidgeting resurfaced.
After the DAC the retraining began. It took me a couple of months to regain the lovely sit stay that I’d had earlier, and even now she occasionally stands while I’m leading out.
Protecting Your Lead-Out
- Make a conscious effort to be still for a couple of heartbeats before you call your dog. I lead out, make eye contact over my shoulder, put my hand out … and then pause for a second.
- Do check that your dog is in position, and STILL, before you start. Your dog should know that agility only starts when she’s sitting nicely – don’t teach her otherwise!
- Work on teaching your dog to hold her position despite your tempting body language. Can she stay while you wave your arm around? What about if you start running, or throw her toy? The hardest one for Rik was the time I ran into another room with her dinner – it took us a few goes to get that one right!
- Practise with verbal distractions too. Can your dog hold her stay while you yell your number to the scribe? What about if you sing a couple of lines of your favourite song?
- Set a three-second time limit for sitting when you’re asked. If your dog exceeds the time limit because she’s eyeing up the first jump, turn around and walk away, then come back and try again.
Retraining a Pear-Shaped Stay
Many handlers don’t let their dog break at training, but are inconsistent about this in competition. Over time, the dog will learn that stays are compulsory at training, but optional in the ring. This can be very frustrating, because no matter what you do at club, your training doesn’t hold up at shows. The only real solution is to address the problem where it happens – in the ring.
Before you start on a retraining effort, be honest with yourself about how committed you are. Consistency is extremely important. To build a perfect stay for the long-term, you will need to fix your dog’s stay every single time she breaks – are you ready for that? With Rik, I decided to leave the retraining until after the NZDAC, because I knew I wouldn’t want to leave the ring there.
Start by assessing your dog’s stay at home, using some of the distractions suggested in the previous section. I set myself a goal of reinforcing Rik for ten good sit stays every day for a month, gradually increasing the level of difficulty. I was quite surprised by how bad Rik’s stay was – she really had no idea what her release cue was!
While you’re retraining away from the obstacles, you’ll want to avoid reinforcing your dog’s bad lead-outs at club training or shows. Start with your dog, or try a much shorter lead-out that you think your dog can manage – and remember to fix it if your dog doesn’t stay!
Once you’re happy with your dog’s stay, try it out in front of a single jump. If your dog has a long history of breaking you will need to spend a lot of time at this level to build a new habit. If you got onto the problem early, you’ll be able to progress to full courses pretty quickly.
How Exactly Do I “Fix” It?
So you’ve retrained your stay and you’re ready to try it out in the ring. But first you need a plan – what exactly will you do if your dog breaks?
A lot of people will take their dog back to the start line, ask it to sit, and then start their lead-out again. You will be eliminated for doing this, but at least you get to have some fun on the course. I think it’s a reasonable way to train your dog if you are consistent, but the down side is that you give your dog another chance to break. I see too many people put their dog back at the start, try again, and then shrug their shoulders and continue their run when their dog breaks a second time. Guess what you just taught your dog?
My approach with Rik was to leave the ring after the first break. This requires a lot of patience, especially if you’ve driven several hours to the show. It’s a pretty severe punishment to most dogs, drastic enough to discourage them from trying it again.
How Long Does It Take?
We spent about a month over the Christmas break working on our stays at home, and then we hit the ring for a summer of agility. I’d entered seven consecutive weekends of shows, giving us lots of chances to practise our lead-outs.
I saw results much more quickly than I expected. At the first couple of shows we left the ring a lot, probably only running one course each day. After that, I’d have to leave the first class of the weekend and after that she was fine. By the last show she was rock solid in the ring.
Rik didn’t have a long history of creeping, and had probably done it about 15 or 20 times in the ring before I retrained it. We had to leave the ring about the same number of times before she was reliable. Dogs with a more established habit of breaking in the ring will need more repetitions. If you are patient and consistent though, I don’t think that 1:1 ratio will hold for a dog who has been breaking for years!
It’s two years later now, and someone complimented me at a recent show on my dog’s calm start-line stay. I have been very pleased with our lead-outs over the last year, but a couple of times recently she has stood up before I called her. I’ll be paying close attention to this new outbreak to make sure we don’t descend into anarchy again.
Have you and your dog struggled with start-line stays? How successful were your efforts to fix it?