Clean Run - March 2020 - 39

You can run a high drive dog in agility without stays, but these days it's getting harder and harder
to succeed in agility without solid stays.

Table Training and Stopped Contacts
A great way of training the stay on the table and on
a stopped contact is to treat these stays just like the
start line. Use them as the start of the fun, not an interruption to the game. You can actually use the same
start-line stay approach demonstrated in the previous
section. Make sure that there is lots of varied reinforcement for holding the stay until the verbal release.
One of the reasons I really like this method of proofing
for the contacts is that you're not repeating the obstacle performance.
To me, the dog did the obstacle correctly if he went to
the dogwalk as directed, got on at speed, did the dogwalk at speed, drove into his 2-on/2-off position, and
stopped in position. If he then self-released, it's a broken stay, not an incorrect obstacle performance, and
it's the stay you need to deal with.
I also use handling maneuvers a lot when proofing my
stay on both the table and the contacts. To train both
the table and contact stays, you want to vary the approaches and your position relative to the obstacles.
Your physical proximity should not be necessary for the
stay. In order to do that, you can use a variety of handling maneuvers at different speeds to proof the stays.
Again, try to keep a high rate of reinforcement. The maneuvers I use include: send, recall, run with, push past,
front cross, rear cross, blind cross, bleed off, converge,
and stop motion. For stays on the table, you should
also think of having somebody count and say "go"
while you're varying your movement & positions.
Proofing the Table Stay
Proofing Contact Stays
Notes:
* When I'm proofing the dogwalk stay, I do a lot of
mounts into position from the side rather than the
whole dogwalk. It helps to isolate the stay element.
* When you start to trial, try very hard to trial the way
you train. Try not to give in to the "I'll make sure he

stays" impulse. We see handlers creep slowly away
from the start, repeating "Stay, stay, stay" with every
step, slamming on the brakes at the bottom of each
contact, looming over the dog while he lies on the
table. If you change your behavior drastically, the
dog will have every reason to believe that his behavior should change too.
* Remember that you control the release. Even if the
timer or judge says, "go," it's not a bad idea to vary
your release timing at the start line and table.

Conclusion
Will all this training and proofing absolutely guarantee that your dog will never break a stay on an agility
course? It will make it more unlikely, but eventually, it
will probably happen! Unfortunately, high drive dogs will
always want to push the envelope.
These days, given the introduction of "Fix & Continue"
and classes and venues that permit training in the ring
at trials, it's much easier to deal with a broken stay at a
trial in the same way you would deal with it in training.
That's hugely important since we don't want to teach
the dog that there's one set of rules for training, but a
different set for trialing. So, I highly recommend that
you take advantage of some of the "train in the ring"
classes available as a part of your proofing before you
start to trial "for real."
When you do go into the ring for real, you should decide in advance what you're going to do if your dog
does break a stay. Are you going to mark it verbally?
Are you going to both stop and use a verbal for more
impact? Are you going to stop and down or sit the dog
and restart? Are you going to go back and repeat the
stay or the obstacle (Fix & Continue)?
In the past, our only option for marking and continuing
was to take the dog off the course. Now, that would generally be my last resort. If I've exhausted the other options, and I don't want the dog to continue to fail, I would
take the dog out (unemotionally) and put him in his crate.
However, this presumes I've also done timeouts in training. For some high drive dogs, the "no stay, no play" in a
high adrenaline trial setting can have a major impact and
might be the last step needed in your proofing. D

Terry discovered agility in 1989 at the Radner 3-Day Horse Trial, and has been training, teaching, and competing ever since. She's competed with four Portuguese Water
Dogs and is currently training her fifth Mini Poodle, Joee, and her latest addition, Pap-a-Collie (Border/Pap) Melange. Her dogs have made the podiums at USDAA, AKC,
and NADAC Nationals, and Mini Poodle Idgie has represented the US internationally on IFCS, EO, AWC, and WAO teams. Terry is currently on the EO Team management
staff and teaching agility at the Oriole Dog Training Club in Baltimore. You can find Terry on Facebook, and her email is TDHerman2@aol.com.
March 20 | Clean Run

Clean Run - March 2020

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