The Spaniel Annals

I’ve been re-reading Patricia McConnell’s great book  For the Love of a Dog, and came across the point she makes about stays: that they teach a young dog  not only physical control, but also emotional control.  She’s so convinced of this that she even has an addendum in the book with the details about teaching sit stays. 

Recently I’ve been contemplating the need for Gael to learn more physical control.  She’ll be a year old in just a few days, April 24th, and she’s bright and eager to work.  I think she’s ready to handle more rigorous work with her stays and also holding a dumbbell.  While I typically wouldn’t start some of this work this early with a 1-year-old springer, there’s something different about Gael–her intensity, her toughness–that tells me she’s ready.  Besides, her lack of physical control is beginning to get a little over the top.  She’s a strong, quick dog whose exuberance has not always been easy for this aging trainer’s body to handle.  I want to keep the exuberance but get it a bit more within some boundaries.   Getting emotional control at the same time would be great!

Gael’s stays up to now have been problematic.  She understands the position, but she twitches, turns, flip-flops, moves feet here and there, and generally shows no understanding of where her body is or what it means to stay still.  So I’m borrowing a stay technique I’ve seen used for dogs who are nervous about stays in the ring: a box made out of PVC.  The one I’m using is actually the old PVC front board for my since-passed Gordon Setter, Vita.  This box provides an enclosure so that if Gael moves at all, she’ll be touching the PVC.    Surprisingly enough (or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised), it’s working beautifully!  Gale is sitting quietly in her box, now for over a minute at a time, with no creeping forward or getting up:

Before this, Gael’s downstay has been even worse than her sitstay.  She flip-flops over onto various hips, creeps forward, gets up, and any other possible movement she can think of.  Amazingly, here she’s doing a quiet downstay for over a minute with no movement:

Interestingly, with the incorporation of this PVC stay box, Gael’s dumbbell hold has taken a leap as well.  Before she was willing to hold it quietly in her mouth in a sit, but refused to get up and move.  All of a sudden, she’s now willing to move forward some steps with it.  Emotional self-control?  I’d like to think so!

I love these training breakthroughs where I and the dog learn something new at the same time.  Two “ah-ha’s” are always even better than one.