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Agh! the Stand command!


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Tuesday has been picking up the basics, lay, sit, stay, sit when stopped on a walk, come, even roll over... but I can not seem to communicate "stand" with her.

 

I've been working with the lure method, first luring her into the stand position and treat... Then using an empty hand and then treat. It seemed to be working, but if I don't automatically give her the treat she begins trying lay or sit. Part of this may be because the stand lure looks an awful lot like the lay lure. She responds both to the verbal and hand motion to lay, but hasn't picked up on the word "stand" and gets confused with the lure if the treat isn't given immediately.

 

I've even tired patiently waiting for her to stand if she moves into the lay position, but this seems to frustrate her and I get the "Look Ma, I'm doing it can't you see" yelp. Plus I don't want to push further confusion when I want to move her into a prolonged lay.

 

So help? Any ideas? Different methods?

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Have you tried physically holding her under her belly in the stand before treating / praising her?

 

No I haven't, I've been a little hesitant to physically touch her during commands because she gets distracted from command. Although that does remind me that I need to continue working with her to patiently allow touching. She has no problem being touched any where on her body but if its during training touching her causes a fit of sorts while because she thinks I'm hiding a treat on her body some where.

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My agility instuctor trained this by asking us to put our dog in a sit and then having us gently tap the dog's back paw with our foot which prompted most dogs to immediatley stand up...click and treat to mark the behavior and then gradually add the verbal command and/or hand signal. Worked like a charm with both my dogs!

 

Lori

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An easy way is to each your dog to back up on command first. Then get the dog to sit, and ask for the back up command. As soon as they stand up to move backward click and reward that. I then just say "stand, back up" and then within a few click/rewards just say "stand" and click for standing. Once they do it on a sit, you can either do the same thing for the down, or often they can immediately do it from a down as well - it depends on the dog.

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teach the sit and down stay before requesting the stand stay then the concept of staying in place is easily generalized

 

I agree with this. I taught stand by taking a treat and while the dog is sitting, put my hand with the treat under his chin almost into his neck/chest. This makes him have to look down and under which causes him to stand. He picked it up very fast. In the beginning click/treat as the dog is standing then wait a second to click/treat...and slowly up the time before you treat so the dog understands that he has to stand/stay not lay back down. Your dog is also just offering behaviors trying to figure out how to get the treat. So you will have to click/treat right after he stands and work up to a longer duration.

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when Gem was having issues,after I had already taught stand, she later decided to start offering other things instead..non of which would ever be stand lol. finally what worked for her, was walking away...if I asked for a stand and she started offering everything but, I took the treats and left without a word, she would get confused, get up and follow me wherever I went, the second she got to me,,as she would be standing in confusion, I rewarded her for her wonderful "stand" and we would get back to our happy game of training, if I asked for stand again, and she gave it to me, if I waited a moment and she started offering other thingsm, I again, just walked away without a word, she caught on pretty quickly, and now has a good stand without offering a million other things lol

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when Gem was having issues,after I had already taught stand, she later decided to start offering other things instead..non of which would ever be stand lol. finally what worked for her, was walking away...if I asked for a stand and she started offering everything but, I took the treats and left without a word, she would get confused, get up and follow me wherever I went, the second she got to me,,as she would be standing in confusion, I rewarded her for her wonderful "stand" and we would get back to our happy game of training, if I asked for stand again, and she gave it to me, if I waited a moment and she started offering other thingsm, I again, just walked away without a word, she caught on pretty quickly, and now has a good stand without offering a million other things lol

 

Have you tried using the 300 Pigeon Peck for time expansion? It works great. As soon as I start it, the dogs know that whatever behaviour they are doing at that point in time they need to start offering it for longer periods of time in order to get rewarded.

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I've trained the stand two ways.

 

1. Hand Target

 

I teach a very solid hand target first. Once it has a high value for the dog, I will use it to teach the stand.

 

I put the dog in a sit in heel or side, and then present the hand that is not the dog side hand. I hold it out far enough in front of the dog's nose - at nose level - so the dog has to move into the stand to nose touch. I click before the dog actually touches the hand target (if possible) and treat. At first I don't worry if the dog steps forward a bit. That will sharpen up when the dog has the idea.

 

Once the dog is offering that to the hand target, I add the stand cue.

 

And once the dog is standing readily on cue, I start to build in duration by delaying the click until the dog has held the stand for several seconds, building to more.

 

2. Release into Stand

 

With Dean I took a short cut. He knew his release word well and when he heard it, he would automatically stand.

 

So, I would sit him in heel or side and then release. When his rump moved up off the floor, I would click/treat, and then I built fluency and duration in the same way that I would with the hand target.

 

Both of these approaches resulted in an excellent understanding of the stand cue.

 

I wish you the best with it.

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1. Hand Target

 

I teach a very solid hand target first. Once it has a high value for the dog, I will use it to teach the stand.

 

I put the dog in a sit in heel or side, and then present the hand that is not the dog side hand. I hold it out far enough in front of the dog's nose - at nose level - so the dog has to move into the stand to nose touch. I click before the dog actually touches the hand target (if possible) and treat. At first I don't worry if the dog steps forward a bit. That will sharpen up when the dog has the idea.

 

Once the dog is offering that to the hand target, I add the stand cue.

 

And once the dog is standing readily on cue, I start to build in duration by delaying the click until the dog has held the stand for several seconds, building to more.

 

That's the way I do it with most dogs. I'm not a fan of touching the belly as it can end up with a hunched and defensive position.

 

Once distance has been built in the cue becomes a hand to the side, palm forward.

 

What Pam Wolf and Northof49 said too. If I'm being picky I want the front feet planted firmly and the back legs to rise as if to walk backwards but not actually do it. I'm more concerned with the front end not moving forward than the rear end moving back, if that makes any sense. It can be achieved by a combination of pre-taught walk back and hand target but clicker timing has to be good.

 

Once upon a time the Stand/Stay was an Obedience exercise here but no longer. Maybe because, as Obedience people tell me it's hard to teach - except it isn't.

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Have you tried using the 300 Pigeon Peck for time expansion? It works great. As soon as I start it, the dogs know that whatever behaviour they are doing at that point in time they need to start offering it for longer periods of time in order to get rewarded.

 

 

its the only way I have ever extended time, never knew it had a name though, had to look that up lol

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A stand stay isn't hard to teach, but think of the concept of standing still. A dog rarely stands still unless watching something that holds it's interest. Just to stand there is a bit of a vague concept. One way the 4H'ers teach the stand stay is "doggie twister'. A piece of cardboard with coloured circles. Place the dogs feet in circles of one colour (in a fair position, no crossed legs) and reward the dog for keeping it's feet in the circle. YES, the dog does NOT know it's supposed to keep it's feet in a colour, but it does learn not to move the feet. We do this for showmanship training 9stacking the dog). it is an easy jump when taught along with the sit and down stay for the dog to learn to stand where it is. A moving stand comes soon afterwards.

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I don't know if you want a formal, fancy obedience moving stand. If so, don't watch the video! This is how I taught my stand, using a hand target. The idea is that so long as they don't move their feet, they get treats. If they move, no more treats. I just wanted to teach a stand so that if I needed to pull some branch out of their butt hair, I could get them to stand.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIlfp_Jmn_8

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I've always found that once the dog understands the behavior, getting it with front feet planted isn't hard. If need be, I will practice right in front of a piece of furniture so forward movement is not possible and c/t for the stand without any movement. But, honestly, I haven't really found that to be terribly necessary. I think I might have done it with Dean for a training session or two.

 

One of the biggest problems with the stand is that we all tend to reinforce our dogs so often for sitting that they are often looking to get into the sit and will do so on the slightest perceived cue. When I start a new dog now, I reinforce standing a lot to teach that standing is also highly reinforcing. This is particularly important with Freestyle dogs since we don't want them sitting every time we stop moving.

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Have you tried using the 300 Pigeon Peck for time expansion? It works great. As soon as I start it, the dogs know that whatever behaviour they are doing at that point in time they need to start offering it for longer periods of time in order to get rewarded.

 

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the "300 Pigeon Peck"?

 

thanks, Jovi

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One of the biggest problems with the stand is that we all tend to reinforce our dogs so often for sitting that they are often looking to get into the sit and will do so on the slightest perceived cue.

That comments, clearly cues the question, why? I do teach the 'Sit' command, but it's not a priority (except for fosters, where potential adopters usually insist that the dog knows the 'Sit' command*). It may also be a handy half-way to a down, but beyond that, I have little use for it. 'Wait!', which is what I use for the stand command, is absolutely the first thing a new dog learns when they come into my house.

 

Note: * ... and they all seem to expect the dog to understand their particular variant of the associated hand signal. I had one potential adopter tell me that my one foster didn't know 'Sit', because he used a different hand signal and agressive tone so the poor boy was confused. He actually had an excellent 'Sit', 'Down' and could hold a 'Stay' across the full length of a dog park (with tons of distractions).

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That comments, clearly cues the question, why?

 

It is definitely emphasized in pet manners kind of classes. One of the first things people learn is to teach the dog to sit to greet, or to sit for petting. This reinforces the sit. And many go on to teach the dog to sit before being fed, sit at the door, etc. Like you, I teach a standing "wait", but back when I first started training, I was taught to have the dog sit to wait and I did that until I had a reason not to.

 

And in sports we use it all over the place. Most of us teach a sit-stay for a startline behavior. Sits are all through Rally, at the end of stationary exercises, and in jumping and recall exercises. Even in Freestyle, many tricks and moves incorporate a sit.

 

Even though I go out of my way to reinforce standing, and I introduce standing position right from the start, the sit still becomes highly reinforced over the course of my dog's training. Using mats, CU fashion, has helped a lot with this. I don't leave my dogs on a sit-stay anymore if I am at training and need to move around the room without the dog. Instead the dog is on his or her mat. But aside from that, they do end up getting reinforced a lot for sit.

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Hmm. I'm still not a 100% on what I'm going to do about the stand. I do want a dog where I can touch her body during a stand... like the stands you see in conformation... not the long outstretched legs necessarily but where the dog remains still while being handled. Of course the dog knowing what "stand" means would be helpful.

 

The "300 Pigeon Peck" I think will be helpful, but I don't think she actually understands the stand command... maybe just a little more patience with the hand targeting/luring and she'll get it. We'll see.

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Hmm. I'm still not a 100% on what I'm going to do about the stand. I do want a dog where I can touch her body during a stand... like the stands you see in conformation... not the long outstretched legs necessarily but where the dog remains still while being handled. Of course the dog knowing what "stand" means would be helpful.

 

The "300 Pigeon Peck" I think will be helpful, but I don't think she actually understands the stand command... maybe just a little more patience with the hand targeting/luring and she'll get it. We'll see.

 

The first thing you need to decide is "how" you want the dog to get into the stand. Do you want the kick back stand, or do you want the front end moving forward and putting the dog into a stand? My preference has always been a kick back stand, as I don't want forward movement from my dogs when I put them into a stand, so I don't get them creeping forward a few steps into a stand.

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The first thing you need to decide is "how" you want the dog to get into the stand. Do you want the kick back stand, or do you want the front end moving forward and putting the dog into a stand? My preference has always been a kick back stand, as I don't want forward movement from my dogs when I put them into a stand, so I don't get them creeping forward a few steps into a stand.

To be completely honest I'm not sure if I understand the difference.

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