staying down

[Guest kimkathan]

How would you go about teaching/drilling a dog to stay down until another command is given? I have one that KNOWS what down means (off sheep she'll stay for over 15 min), however on sheep, the excitment is too much, that when holding at a gate or the barn, she'll lay down, but will get up and "sneek" in on the sheep as they drift away. I know she's trying to keep them from breaking, but I have a working stop/stand, and when I say down, I want her to stay until another command is given. I have tried taking her by the collar and taking her back to the place where she was, over and over and over, but to no avail.

[Guest kimkathan]

After going out today(in 15+/- of snow) I'm thinking that maybe more of our problems are based around that she's blowing me off. Maybe what we need is for her to trust that I know what I'm doing, and visa versa. I could still use advice on the previous matter and any way of building a trust with her. We seem to have a good sense of each other around the house and away, but on sheep, it's another matter.

[Guest Penny Tose]

I don't know anyone whose dogs don't move occasionally after having been told down or down and stay.

 

The easiest thing to do is to teach a down and stay off stock, then go back to

stock. Use the down and stay. Don't expect perfection. Don't get mad.

 

The stay part will improve.

 

Personally I like having a dog who will break a stay to clean things up. Of

course, the dog sometimes breaks the stay to ruin some tricky set-out I have maneuvered the sheep into or sometimes does what we normally do instead of

what I have in mind. In those instances, I try to be on the ball and repeat

the stay command instead of zoning out then getting testy when the dog

breaks the stay. I like the dog to get up some because I am also perfectly

capable of zoning out and expecting the dog to hold sheep to me after I have

given a stay command.

 

Dragging the dog back to where the stay was broken does no good in

training the stay itself on stock. At least for me, it never has on stock. But if you were doing some training exercise, for example, starting

an outrun with you halfway up the field in order to control the top or

sides, then you will have to go back to where the dog started. In training off stock, I do tend to go back to where the stay was broken.

 

When trying to shed, the dog needs to stay when asked. This is tricky

because you don't want to get mad when teaching shedding.

 

Snow: Training stays and getting them in snow never worked well for me in

Montana. On nice days in snow, sure, just not in brutal cold or in freezing,

slushy snow. In fifteen degree weather even on a bright and still day, I would not ask for or try to train for much of a stay.

 

As an aside, I can remember walking to the barn in extreme cold through heavy snow. I wanted the dogs ahead of me. No way. They stayed behind in a tidy line and let me break the trail.

 

Your dog may not be blowing you off at all; your dog may be cold lying on the snow. I also never got much speed on outruns when the snow was balling up in paws.

 

In general: I would separate "down" and "stay." It's easier. I know some people don't though.

 

For me, the whole stay question on stock is one of appropriate compromises with the concept of how often to repeat a command. I would forget all that stuff about only saying "stay" once in obedience. If you're willing to repeat yourself, even in training off of stock, you'll probably wind up with better results.

 

I realize it's a pain to have to turn around and repeat "stay" when it's snowing, you're carrying a lamb so you don't have a lambsicle stuck to the ground, and you're trying to get in a ewe who wants to charge the dog who is too close. Keeping an eye on the dog in this situation is simply a better scenario than ending up back where you started in the pasture with the ewe alternately bleating for a lamb she can't see and blaming the dog for the disappearance.

 

Penny

 

<small>[ March 15, 2005, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Penny ]</small>