Guys,

This may be a basic question, but I would appreicate your help on this as I can't find any one locally to answer this.


I have taught Kaiser that (Recall) "Hier" means , come and sit in front of me. But he is not aware that he has to come and sit dead straight . When he sits , he MAY be straight, or his ass may be a bit angled to his front etc. So it is just a matter of luck if he will sit dead straight.

I have tried using touch pads but he puts his front paws on the pad but still his ass might be a bit inclined. I wish there was a touch pad for the butt :P


How does one teach his dog to (A) come and sit dead straight.
(B) to teach him to come and sit as close as possible. Now he sits a feet or so away from me.


Regards

Ram

Here are a couple of threads I found interesting:

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=222985

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=224150

And I hope Bob Scott and others will see the thread too, but keep in mind that Sunday is often an out-to-train day.

No reward untill he sits the way you want.
I've always taught that little exercise by creeping backwards so the dog has to keep repositioning himself until he gets it right.
So as soon as he hits the right spot...BAM! he gets his reward.
It isn't long before they learn the reward comes sooner if they get it right the first time.

I keep doing the backing up thing too. It works but not all the time. Some times I run out of space to back up My dog Kaiser is sweet chap with average drive so I cant correct him a lot. And he does not take food with vigour either. So it is a delicate balance between saying no so many times before I have to reward him

Hmmm, have you tried giving him any visiual cues as he's running up?

I pat both my hands on my thighs and say Hier. What sort of visual cues shouls I be giving?

Eh, I don't know Ramachandran!
Whatever works. lol

Myself, I make kinda like, emmm, I'm watering the flowers.

As soon as the dog learns I also could be holding the treat there the rest moves along prety fast.

LOL, you just have to make sure the dog stops!

I have used two different ways to work on straight fronts. Michael Ellis taught me to use to thin dowels and teach the dog to "move off" of the dowel. In other words, when touched by the dowel, the dog shifts position away from the dowel. Once the dog learns this, place one dowel in each hand and ask the dog to do a recall. Once the dog is coming in to sit, lift the dowels as if to make a narrow chute for him/her to go through. If the dog still sits crooked, use the dowel to shift the butt over.

The other method I have used was taught to me by Janice Gunn ( http://www.tntkennels.com/janice.html ) and it is the method I use with Frost as the dowels seemed to stress her (Go figure, can take stick hits but a dowel causes her concern <shrug>.

What Janice does is cuts plastic gutters into 3 foot sections (I used these: http://tinyurl.com/23do555 ) and place two on the ground to make a chute wide enough for the dog to sit straight in. At first you are standing right at the end of the chute so that the dog has to sit between the two gutters and eventually you start backing up so the dog comes through the chute but is not in it when it sits.

With both these methods it takes quite a bit of repetition but both seem to work well - or at least they did with my dogs.

Another thing I do is I wear a vest when I compete in obedience. I train my dogs to have their nose basically centering on the zipper of the vest by putting a treat there in training. That way they look to the zipper and not my hands for the treat :-)

Here is a video of Frost and I training the go out exercise yesterday. This was the second time I put the go out together with the jumps and did not bait the go out so you can see her "wheels" spinning when she gets over to gating and is looking for food. However, you can see how she does her front correctly the first time and than anticipates the finish on the second and I had to use my foot and hands to get her in position as I had not been baiting my zipper (Guess I might have to go back and do that again for awhile....): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhdyRUwrFb0

Ditto on what Randy posted. (except the part about watering the flowers)

I actually start this as very young pups... (as the begining of the recall)...it is the first thing that I teach. Just holding the treat low & encouraging them to come in close to get the reward. I don't put a name to it until later. As they get a bit older, I start to wait until they are straight to get the reward, using a negative marker of uhuh or nope & let them fix it by stepping back. I also continue to train this by constantly moving so that they have to keep fixing their position to get rewarded with each of my posiiton changes so that they learn to get into the correct straight position or no reward.

I don't use much for a visual cue except the treat in my hand & standing very straight & square. I would also use the highest value treat that you can to reward. Also, work on this in the house or some other quiet distration free place untill he does it correctly for a while. No corrections are needed, just no treat. When he does finally get it right, jackpot the reward & repeat. If he doesn't get it after a few tries that you see him getting tired or loosing interest...ask him to do something he knows well & reward & try again later. I would use a lower value reward for the alternate command that he knows & save that high value one ONLY for when he does the front posiiton correctly.

You might try using a fence line on one side if the dog tends to stick out his butt on one particular side or used a very closed in area (tree next to a fence or something like that) to encourage the straight sit. Be creative if you have to...by building a straight enclosed area with wall in the house & a couple of chairs or a board set up along a fence, etc to give the dog limited area to swing out his butt.

You can also hold the reward between your legs, with your habd from behind your leg, so that he has to come in really close to get it.Evewn if he has to put his head between your knees for a while to exgagerate the poing of comeing close. Work on the close sit & then on the staightness.

No watering the flowers!!???

Er, em, ahem writing my name in the snow?
Does that work?