Puppy Antics 2

In my last column, I wrote about training a puppy for the ring and I’d like to continue with that subject in this column as well. As they say, experience is the best teacher, and believe me, I have certainly made more mistakes than I should have. But I think that we can learn better from our mistakes than if we never made them at all. So based on this, I want to share some of the things I wished I had not done! In this column I’d like to discuss how one should and should not train with…

I look back on my training and realize that I have relied entirely too much on bait. In retrospect, I wish I’d not used any bait at all to start with. Bait is an easy way to manipulate the dog into position, but when they are focusing on nibbling at the bait in your hand, they are not learning what they should be doing with their body. Sure, it is easier to let them nibble the bait while you position the legs, then transfer to controlling the head while they nibble the bait. It is also quite easy to allow yourself to believe your puppy is trained when it really isn’t. In fact, all you have done is attached that puppy as if by an invisible lead to food and that is all the puppy has learned; that you are feeding them and it tastes good.

But what happens when you don’t have the bait in their mouth? From my experience, they wait a fraction of a minute for you to bring the bait back, then they start looking for it. Thus if you try to present the dog with the tail held up, they dance around and post back or sit down, looking for the bait again. They have not learned to stack and stay if you have only used the bait to control them. This really makes it hard to get a nice picture, too, unless you have a friend who can bait them just outside the photo area!

And when the judge comes to look at your dog’s head, you can’t be baiting them. So consequently, with the pup trained entirely with bait, when the judge is trying to look at the mouth, the dog is trying to avoid those hands because he is in search of the bait again. Not good!

Another problem arises with bait when your puppy realizes handlers have been tossing bait all over the ring. Suddenly the ring and all around the ring area becomes a treasure hunt site. Every discoloration in the floor, every tuft of hair, or anything at all is a potential piece of bait! The last time I showed my puppy, she was so excited about the treasure hunt that her head was way up as she frantically searched from side to side on the down and back for any possible pieces of bait left by another handler. Of course, a puppy holding its head high swinging it from side to side is not going to be moving well at all! You get a front flipping and not reaching and as the head swings from side to side, the front follows course. When this happened, I knew I needed to work on “leave it” and getting her to pay attention to me. And under no circumstances should she be allowed to pick bait up off the floor.

So in retrospect, it is best to train that puppy to stack on both the table and the ground without bait to begin with. The puppy needs to learn how to stack and stand for some length of time, both hand stacked and free stacked, before the bait is introduced. The puppy needs to learn to stay on the STAY command starting with short intervals and increasing in duration. And most of all, the puppy needs to learn to work for you and not just if you are stuffing food in their mouth.

Only after the principles have been learned do you add the bait back in. This helps with animation such as getting the ears up. It is also handy when you are waiting in line during the individual exams and you want your dog to look good freebaitin. But be careful that the pup isn’t too animated as they are all different and some will overreact. Some need more encouragement than others. Some are better off with something not quite as exciting, such as a dog biscuit instead of meat or cheese.

A very excited puppy will often move with the head and tail too high, throwing their front feet all over the place. And when the head is too high, they lose their reach as well. The focus needs to be on trotting around the ring correctly, not where the next piece of bait will come from!

One instance I think training with bait is very warranted is in a dog that has not been trained when very young or one that has had a bad experience with training. If the dog is very apprehensive on lead and when being handstacked, the bait can make them realize this is not such a frightening experience afterall.

I remember a bitch that apparently had a bad experience with training, so every time her rear end was touched, she hunkered down submissively and looked up as if she was going to be punished. It seemed apparent that she did not understand what was going on and had probably been punished for something associated with this in the past. So what we did to bring her out of it was to let her nibble at the bait and make that the focus. Then we added petting her body while she nibbled the food, eventually working it down to her hind legs. These were over many and frequent short training sessions. Eventually we were stacking her rear gently and she was no longer associating it with something bad, but rather the food. In time, she was stacking normally.

So with a timid dog or one that is unsure what you want, the bait can be a great way to make them know the show thing really is fun.

As I said, every puppy is different and as a handler, you need to be able to read just how much is enough, how much is too much, and when you need to make things more or less exciting. The goal is for that puppy to learn that the show ring is the place to be and is a lot of fun, but the pup also needs to know that there are correct and incorrect things to do in the ring. The first few times in the ring should focus more on making it a happy fun place to be rather than trying to win. There is plenty of time to concentrate on winning, and a puppy or adult dog will not win if it perceives the ring as a place that they will only be corrected and have no fun.