Since he was 9 or 10 weeks old, Able has had to sit and wait every time I open his ex-pen door to let him out. If he doesn’t wait, no problem – I just shut the door and wait for him to remember his manners. He is only allowed to move when I give his release cue “OK” (see previous discussion of release cues).
At 11 or 12 weeks, I started doing more formal Crate Games with him, and the learning from the ex-pen transferred over almost instantly.
One of my training focuses last week was on holding a sit stay while I throw a toy for him to retrieve. I started this in a crate, with one hand on the door so I could shut it, and the other hand putting a toy down on the floor. He was OK with this, but it was a real struggle for him the first time I actually threw it a short distance.
He cottoned on very quickly. I only had to shut the crate door a couple of times during the first session. The next night I couldn’t get him to do it wrong it all, so I parked him on the ground just in front of his crate, and he was still perfect. Good puppy!
A reliable sit stay in the face of temptation is an important agility skill, vital if your dog can run faster than you. 99.5% of my agility runs start with my dog holding a sit stay while I move out towards the second or third obstacle. This is called a lead-out and it is a behaviour that commonly breaks down in competition because the dog is more excited. It’s important that you always wait until your dog is sitting still with his bum on the ground whenever you are training anything that starts from a sit position, or you are likely to run into trouble with this down the road.
“but he Does It at Home” Syndrome
Also last week, I tried to get my puppy to sit and stay in everyday life for the first time. I just wanted him to stay put while I moved some hedge trimming from one side of the gate to the other side. He wouldn’t do it. He could sit, but as soon as I took a single step he was off again. Eventually I just shut the gate a bit so that he couldn’t escape while I put the clippings in the bin, and captured the super-cute photo above.
What Able had was a case of the very common dog training complaint: “But he does it at home!” This cry of despair is heard almost weekly in every obedience or foundation agility class in the world.
I didn’t really think it through, but this was a lot harder for my puppy than the sit stay inside for several reasons:
- He was OUTSIDE, rather than being in a quiet controlled environment indoors.
- I was standing up and moving around, rather than sitting on the floor.
- There were two very interesting distractions present – my other dog Rik, and a Super Fun Awesome Exciting bin of hedge trimmings.
- I probably haven’t asked him to do a sit stay in “real life” before, when his dinner bowl hasn’t been in the room.
Dogs are very vigilant about small changes in their environment, and tend to absorb these into what they learn. When you train your dog to sit and stay in the living room while you are sitting on the floor, he is going to learn to sit and stay in the living room while you are sitting on the floor. This is both a blessing and a curse. Good: Your dog can figure out that “down” means “stop jumping up” when your partner says it at home, and “lie down instantly” when you say it in the obedience ring. Bad: Your dog can also figure out that “sit” means “sit and stay until released” in training, but “go when you’re ready” in competition, if you aren’t careful to always insist on a nice sit stay.
When you teach any new skill to a dog, especially a young puppy, it’s important to vary some of that context, but not too much at once. Once your dog “has it”, try changing your body posture, or slowly moving instead of standing still. Then for your next training session, try it in a new room of your house. Then perhaps outside in your garden, then outside in your garden with your other dog, then out on a walk.
Every time you change something, your puppy’s performance of the skill will get a bit worse, but then recover. After you’ve tried a few different environments and distractions, you’ll notice that this doesn’t happen any more. He has learned what parts of the context are important (your attention on him, your verbal cues and gestures, possibly your bikkies) and which aren’t (which direction you’re facing, the noise the heat pump makes, whether the room smells like vet clinic).
Young puppies require a lot of patience in this regard, but it’s so helpful to work on generalising all of your basic life skills and tricks before you start agility. A lot of green agility dogs struggle to concentrate in the ring when they go to their first shows because there’s so much new stuff in the environment – particularly if it’s somebody’s first agility dog and it’s never been to an agility show before. The effort you put in now will help you get through this stage more quickly later.