I need some help and ideas on how to crack the stop! We are half way through the gold course and no where near being able to do a stop! Oh how I wish I started this when she was little This is how we have been asked to train the stop: Week 1 Walk dog on lead and dog sits on the sit or stop command - no problem with doing this to either verbal command or stop whistle Week 2 Sit dog off lead about 10 paces away and call dog to you and say stop - this worked the first time we did it, but now Maisie is anticipating what is going to happen Week 3 (today) Sit dog off lead about 15 paces away and call dog and say stop - she stopped but kept creeping across the floor in anticipation of a treat! Any advice on how to move forward with this would be much appreciated!
The big thing with the stop is that you always treat at them or behind them, so they learn that staying out there is good, because that's where the reward is coming from. I had my big breakthrough with the stop at a distance by using a ball. I'd blow the whistle and hold up the ball. They'd turn around and stop because of the ball. I'd click and then throw the ball over their head (so, rewarded behind). I very quickly - after only a handful of repetitions - stopped holding up the ball, but kept the hand signal. Still rewarding with the ball, or a treat, thrown behind them.
I don't treat Charlie behind for a stop, and rarely walk back to him, but simply mark what he gets the reward for - still, bum on ground, then I mark the release. If he moves before a release, no reward, no follow on cue, I just reset the exercise. A ball works well (I don't throw it over my dog's head because I hate the twisting motion that encourages dogs to do when they jump up and spin round - although since Charlie has had some joint problems I'm probably more sensitive about this than the normal person) so the ball does appear in front of him, or in front of him to the side. A placeboard also worked very, very, well. The action of running out, stopping, turning, sitting and looking at you can all be generated by using a placeboard and then you can add your cue once the behaviour is near perfect. And that placeboard glues the bum. For a while, I used both a placeboard and a ball reward. Think I've got a vid of the early days somewhere..... I also do this a fair bit....reward still in front: stop then fetch by Julie T, on Flickr And this - reward at me: back then back by Julie T, on Flickr
We learned this for field work but I confess we did not carry on with it. One key thing in my training said we should teach the whistle STOP and SIT (one tweet) before the whistle recall (three tweets). It said dogs would learn an action response more quickly and easily than a stop action response, so if you trained the action first the stop would be harder. Here's what we did, courtesy of my field trainer. Walk along, stop and ask the dog to SIT as usual. If you were to the point of expecting an automatic sit when you stop then you have to back up a bit and put the verbal command back in. Do a couple. Then put the whistle in your mouth and say SIT through the whistle. Gradually introduce more air till what comes out is more whistle than your voice. When your dog is sitting on only the tweet start introducing distance. That's it, that's all we did, till I was getting distances of 100 hundred feet or so. We did not treat with food for the obvious reason of being afraid it would bring the dog back when released from the distance sit and the next step we planned was to introduce hand signals to direct left or right. We didn't want him to come back. We did not continue with field work but Working Level Rally has go outs, sit at a distance and then take a hand signal left or right and all this came in handy for it.
Thank you for all your suggestions. I'm not sure I can use a ball as she is completely obsessed with them and once she knows I have it she sees or hears nothing else, but I'll have a go later and see what happens. @JulieT I'll have to work out how to introduce a place board. Have you any advice?
Oh good. For others, the link is here: Just to say though, I never used the exercise of a stop on recall but worked on send out to the mat (placeboard) first, then I could get the exact stop whistle behaviour. I want my stop whistle to work when my dog is heading away from me, so that's what I was focused on from the get go. My stop whistle will work when my dog is travelling towards me but I train this only very, very, rarely. I do not want any stickiness or hesitation to creep in while my dog is heading towards me. Just shout if you want help, @Debs.
I agree with Julie, over use of the stop whistle when the dog approaching you can interfer with the recall. The way we have always started is to walk along with dog at heel and stop and ask for a sit when this becomes automatic, introduce the stop whistle. The dog should stay sitting as you walk away, this can take a while to perfect. To introduce the dog the stop away from you, whilst the dog is away from you throw a dummy to your side so the dogs sees it and blow the stop whistle. The reason for throwing it close to you is if the dog does not stop you can pick the dummy yourself, if the dog stops allow it to pick the dummy. They soon learn that a stop means they get the retreive, no stop no retreive.
Yes, I even get stickiness on off lead heel due to asking for a stop at heel. He will be walking along, and think "oh, come on, give me a treat....maybe I'll try a stop.." and he sits down and 'offers' the stop behaviour! So I don't even do that anymore. I use my placeboards or stop him when he is free running. And I'm carefully working on stop on the way to a retrieve (but using placeboards as much as I can there too).
We've only done one gold class so far and haven't yet covered this, but when I was reading the description of the exercises, I assumed it meant as the dog was going away from you, which I think is easier and makes more sense. I've done this by letting Molly bumble on ahead a bit, then saying her name and as she turns saying 'wait' and holding up my hand in a police-like stop gesture. Then I walk to her and treat. This works most of the time (you know how Molly just ambles along!) but I haven't tried it with major distractions or if she was really running. We'll have to get together and practise!
It was SWMBO who told me (us) to only ever treat "out there". Thinking about it, though, as long as you mark the behaviour, I'm not entirely sure why the location of the delivery is important. Hmmm. I do like the place boards, and I will be introducing them once I'm able to get back into a better training schedule, but I do wonder if the dog will end up taking them as too much of a cue in themselves? Do you ever stop Charlie on the way to the place board? I use target sticks stuck in the ground for sending the dogs away from me. Again, I really need to do some work on extending the distance and eventually fading the sticks because they are very reliant on seeing them at the moment. Sounds like you may need to do some work on Maisie "giving up" the ball. Once the ball goes into my pocket or bag, the dogs know that they're not going to get it again for a while, so can get on with other stuff, be that general mooching or training.
@snowbunny - work in Progress Fiona! I've just about descentisied on the ball chucker and now working on the ball on it's own! I blame the kids for playing too much cricket with her!! She's a good fielder though
They are a cue, for sure. They act as a massive hint for what the dog should do, and they are very powerful (at least for Charlie). That's sort of the point of them though, I think. I use them when I know Charlie otherwise would not be able to do something, in this way they speed up my proofing. I honestly think of it as making an exercise easier. So out in the real world on Wimbledon Common, where I don't really have any control over the level of distractions, they are a very good way to get the results I want (so I can reward that behaviour). I haven't had any problems fading them out. Mostly, once I think Charlie has really, really 'got' something on a placeboard, I can just remove them. For directions, I faded them in grass, but this was mainly an experiment to see if that worked. Now Charlie has got the broad idea of out, back, left, right on the placeboards I have now switched to dummies, because that's much faster to work in distance.
Yes, I have stopped Charlie on the way to a placeboard, then to a placeboard hidden in grass, then I switched the placeboard to a toy, then to a dummy. In this way, I got a stop on the way to a dummy. Got a vid of that somewhere......
Yes, here they are: First place board in the grass: to board in grass by Julie T, on Flickr Then the next time, I ask for a stop before the longer grass, then sent him back again but this time there was a toy there and blew my hunt whistle. I built on this to get a stop when he can't see the retrieve item (he wouldn't do this if he were excited though, he is very relaxed here - he had been training a while on a warm August day and really was ready to pack up and go to the beach.... ). back stop ball by Julie T, on Flickr
Just to confirm.....calling the dog to you for a stop ruins your recall (from a short distance)...damn Hopefully having some help with the stop this week with a the trainer that I did all my puppy training with. I'll let you know how we get on. Not holding much hope out to be ready for assessment on three weeks time
I'll be interested to hear the trainer's opinion. Gosh, 3 weeks sounds very short - the organiser of the club I attend gasped when I said I hoped to be ready in May!
@Joy - yes I agree! a 6 weeks course isn't long enough, I always knew it wouldn't be! I'll probably start another 6 weeks when we fail the test!!!
I'm sure you'll manage it! The only problem with where I go is that it's run as a club so no set courses, just turn up when you can and they only book an examiner when enough people are ready.
