STACK_AND_DELIVER_EPISODE_ONE

Daphne's like, that's where my bait is, right there. Are we live? Oh, hey. Are we ready? As ready as we'll be. Hi everyone. Welcome to season two of "Demand to Win Puppies." Last time I saw you, our puppies were about eight weeks old and we were working on the free stack. And now those same puppies are 11 months old. So we're going to show you the progression of training forward to where they are today. But to start with, we're going to bring out Daphne to do a demo for you. But, you know, she's had a couple litters, and-- yeah, right girly. But I'm going to show you-- come here, Daph. Give me this. I got a little bait here. So, we're gonna show you how Daphne does her thing. Come on, Daph. Daph, stand. So, there it is. That's your free stack right there. And if you can see the difference between how this dog looks all stacked up and nice, and how she looks when she just walks in and is just hanging out, that's why we're all here today. Come here, darling. That was very good. That-- ring presentation and presenting a dog is really an art, and it requires a lot of understanding of a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today. But it's incredibly fascinating and really fun. And I just want to-- I want to infect you with my enthusiasm for the subject, because it's something that I just-- I have incredible passion for. So, let's talk about what you need to know to show a dog. If you google ring handling, or you go to a handling class, what are they going to tell you? What-- they're gonna tell you a lot of things that I call the talismans. They're going to tell you, how do you hold the leash. Do you reach over or under the dog to move their legs. Do you-- you know, what do you do with your hand when you move. And these things are all really important, and there's a functional reason why you do everything. But that's not what it is to understand how to handle a dog. In order to understand how to handle a dog, you need to understand three things. First-- number one, basic structure. What is the structure of a dog. Number two, you have to know your breed standard and how your dog's structure should be within the breed standard. And third of all, you have to be able to look at your dog and understand their faults and virtues in light of the breed standard. So, to go in and just say, well, how do we train my dog to show stack-- if someone comes to me, I say, well, I have to see your dog first, because I have to understand what-- how I wanna present that dog and how we should train that dog. Why, though-- seriously, doesn't it seem like that-- come here, Daph-- that it's almost-- come on-- it's almost like tricking the judge, I mean, to try and present the dog just the right way, depending on the dog. I mean, shouldn't it just be that, well, this is the dog and this is what it is. And my answer is, every time you walk in the ring you are entering in a dialogue with the judge. And you're saying to the judge, this is my dog. This is what's good about my dog. This is my dog's virtues, and this is why I think that you should put this dog up. Now, I'm not saying that the judge is always going to agree with you. But you have every right in the world-- and in fact, obligation-- to present your dog-- your dog's best features. You get seconds in front of the judge in a ring. I mean, literally sometimes just, maybe 10 seconds total the dog is gonna look at your judge. What you want to do is make sure you know what you want to present, and that for that 10 seconds, that judge is seeing the best thing about your dog. Why would you present the worst thing about your dog. But again, the first step is understanding what's good and what's bad about your dog in particular. So, I brought out Daphne to help us talk about breed structure-- I mean, basic structure-- because Daphne is what I would say is-- has a generically good dog structure, meaning to say, she has good angulations-- and she's sagging now, because she's standing here, and also that's just her-- over her life, her litters, and her life, and her age-- which, she's gonna be eight years old soon. What you want to see-- what you want to know about, in particular, are a couple things. Come here, sweetheart. I'm just gonna go over you. Shoulder assembly. This is the-- this is the shoulder-- layback of shoulder. This is what we call the upper arm. This is gonna become important. These two thing-- this angle, how this angle forms will vary from breed to breed. But you just have to understand these two bones-- that there's a bone here, there's bone here. This is layback of shoulder. This is return of upper arm-- what they call return of upper arm. And this is going to be influenced by things as far as angles, how long the bones are, how they sit together, and again, breed standards will vary. I use Daphne, and I use a bull terrier because I have bull terriers, and also because our breed standard is pretty generic. Should have good lay back of shoulder, good return of upper arm. Actually, the US breed standard is silent on return of upper arm, but the UK-- which is the parent, you know, the original country where the dog came from-- talks about return of upper arm. So, we'll take it that they should have a good return of upper arm. Meaning to say that this bone should come back here and should be long enough. Now, I'm going to need Phoebe in a minute. So, if you want to bring Phoebe out. And also in the rear, these angles should meet-- should match these angles. This bone, this bone, this bone. The bull terrier should have a tail that's set on low, so the pelvis should, you know, should not be tilted flat this way. It should come down-- the pelvis bone should come down this way. And then you get that nice tail coming off. Oh, Daphne, I know. I'm-- She's like, I don't like that stuff, when you're touching me. I like it better when I'm working and I get bait. So again, you can see that this dog-- pretty well balanced, pretty much generically stand, good, well-made dog. I don't need to do anything fancy to set her up. Once I've trained-- step back. That a girl. Once I've trained-- step over here. That a girl. Step-- no. A little forward. Yeah. Once I've trained this, that's all I need. OK, so now we're going to bring out another dog. Is Phoebe on the way out? And I'm just going to show you-- OK, babe. OK, OK. Good girl. And I'm gonna show you the difference. And this is gonna become more-- you're gonna see why this is more important-- I know, I know. You're going to see why this is more important as we go along. Come here, Daph. You want-- All right. OK. Phoebe's a little wild. Phoebe has-- is not a Grand Champion. She hasn't been shown. And, you know, unlike Daphne, she's not gonna be as experienced or as co-operative. And I've got her leash on backwards, too. Come here. Come here, sweetheart. Let's do this. Let's do it this way. OK, OK. Here you go, here you go. OK. So we've got Phoebe here. You all messed up your makeup. Oh, yeah. Auntie Heidi wants them to look perfect. OK, so this is Phoebe, right here. Come on, baby girl. So, if I can get her to stand still, what you're going to see-- all right, come here. Whoa, whoa. Don't-- [LAUGHTER] Don't leave on me. Come here, Phoebes. Come here. Do you let your dog loose? No, we do not encourage that. You know what? Let me have a hot dog, because this is just, like, so exciting for her that-- come here Phoebe. Yeah, let's just do this. Maybe I can just get a nibble on this. All right. So, listen to me. I know it's very exciting. Come here, darling. You're a good girl. You're a good girl. So come here. OK. So-- oh, boy. You are quite the-- come here. Come here. Ow, ow, ow. Come here, come here, come here, come here. All right, Phoebe. Obviously, you know, not trained for the show ring. But what I-- here. Here, here, here. I'm going to do no bait, because I can't-- she literally is-- she comes unhinged. Oh, and this is a clip that came off. Come here. Come here. By the way, they all start this way. It's not like Daphne was born showing like she does. This is normal. Come here. Come here. [LAUGHTER] This way. People wanna see this part of you. Come here, come here. Come here. All right, listen. There's no more food. Come here. Come here. Come on, we're gonna work with you a little bit. OK, come on. Come on. Yeah, I'll have you face this way. You can face me. You can face me. All right, you can go that way. That way's good too. That's fine. OK. This is perfect. So now, here-- what can you see. You know, talking about return of upper arm and shoulder, what can you see about this dog? This dog has a much-- her upper arm placement is much closer to the front of her body, compared to Daphne. Good girl. You can see that this bone doesn't go back as far compared to Daphne. If you were to drop a plumb line from each of these dogs' point of shoulder and another plumb line from the top of their withers, you can see how Phoebe's shorter upper arm places her foot forward, almost under her prosternum, whereas Daphne's return of upper arm places her foot back, under her withers. So she doesn't have a lot of return of upper arm, compared to Daphne. She also has a flatter sacrum, compared to Daphne. So her tail sets higher, and she-- she's up higher in her-- in the rear. She pushes her butt up high like that. Yeah, that's your butt. That's you. That's you. That's you. So-- so, you can see that. You can see that straightness in the upper arm. Come here. Come here, darling. Let's try it. [KISSING NOISE] Wanna try it? Yes. Good girl. There, you can see it very well. So, we're gonna get Phoebe working a little here. Now, what I want you to see about Phoebe is-- here she goes. Now she's going to work for us. You can see the angles are not as good, but, you know, there are pluses about this dog. And one of the things I like-- I like a round bone, I like her profile, which is very pretty, very important for us. Beautiful eyes, nice ears. So, you know, this bitch has something to offer. So if I'm showing her, I'm gonna make sure I bait her head a little bit down, because if I bait her head up, look at how much straighter she looks. But if I bring it down-- of course, she's not trained to hold her stand. But you can see the difference. Just hold on. Stay. Yeah. Good girl. Nice. Nicely done, Phoebes. Again, you're not-- you're not gonna change reality. I mean, you're not going to trick the judge into thinking that there's nothing-- you know, that her front is good, or her-- she has a great return of upper arm, but you can present her in such a way as to present her virtues. Now, again. So with a bitch like this, something as simple as lowering her head a little, as opposed to having her head up like we did with Daphne-- that can make all the difference in the world, as far as this front assembly goes. So, I'm gonna take Daphne again. And I'm gonna show you something else about-- I'm gonna talk about equipment while we're doing that. So, this is the grownup show lead. This is a really fine jewel chain. It's beautiful. Your dog better be trained, because if there's a kink in it and the dog pulls, it will snap and you'll have a loose dog. But the idea behind this-- come here, Daph. Take this off. Oh, hi Monica. Thank you. You're welcome. Daphne's got hot dog on her face. So the idea behind using this leash is, it's so little and thin, and you can put it right behind your ears. You get it just so it fits just over-- just so it fits just over their head. And then literally, the leash disappears, just about. So you get to have that really pretty long neck. Good girl. I don't have any, I fooled you. So with a puppy, I use a little heavier chain a lot of times. I mean, before they're trained, or with the more, you know, irascible dog, because this they can't break, and if it kinks it won't break. So maybe this is-- I'll use either, you know, a dog that maybe I don't trust, or a young puppy. And another tactic that bull terrier people will do a lot is, they'll do the opposite of this. Now, I wanna show you how-- if I have this in the middle of her neck like that, see how it breaks the line and it doesn't look pretty. You never want anything to touch the middle of the neck. You either want it right here, or draped down over here. And a lot of bull terrier people will use a huge show lead, or they'll even get these kind of-- they're English martingales. And then you can take it-- and then it just opens up way down on their chest. Come here. So, you see, it-- I mean, that's just lovely, you know. Look at how long and how nice you see her neck and head. So either one of those two works. And I'll tell you a lot of things, again, that you'll see handlers do if they have a dog like Phoebe, where maybe this line in here isn't so pretty. They'll use a really thick English lead to fill that in a little bit. But that is a little bit of a trick that-- it's not cheating, but it's a trick. There you go. Good girl. So, let's talk about bait. I'm gonna bring out my whole kit bag of bait, because this is what-- I got a whole bunch to show you guys. And they all are good for different stuff. So this is hot dogs, which is a great standby. I love hot dogs because A, you can put it in your mouth, and B, it's very easy to break up into pieces. You don't actually have to have pieces. I'm not a fan of bait bags, it's just not my thing. Here, you can have that piece. Daphne's like, oh, this is all my stuff. These are little chunks of sausage, if you do wanna carry a bait bag and do it that way. This is pork loin, which is one of my favorites. I love pork loin to use as bait because it's soft enough to break easily, but it doesn't really disintegrate so much in your hands. So this is a good one to use. I'll use this probably when I'm working a lot with the puppies, because again, I can stick it in my mouth. It doesn't disintegrate like-- hot dogs will kind of get soft after a while. And I can break pieces off easily and give it to them. And finally, I'm a big fan of jerky for training. And I particularly like these Jack Link's sticks. And they're actual sticks-- jerky sticks. I know they're good. And I like this, like, if I'm in the group or something and I'm gonna be in the ring for a really long time and holding it for a long time, because it doesn't disintegrate. And again, you can put it in your mouth or in your bra, and it's not gonna to get all greasy. Let's see, Daph. What would you like, darling? Let's go back in here and get-- we'll try some pork. We'll have one of the girls open this up for us. OK. Let's do this. So let's show. OK. So, step one. I'm going to assume that you all are going to go home and read your breed standard, and look at your dogs and educate yourself on what your dog should look like. So now, the next thing I want you to do, is grab a mirror. And there's actually a mirror right here, underneath Mark's camera there. He's actually gonna film down on it so you can see it. And stack your dog up until you see the picture that you wanna see. So-- come here, Daph. Come here. Come here, darling. Oh, I forgot. It's this leash. It's the other leash. Come here. Stand up. OK. So, I like that. That looks good to me. Stay. Now, the next thing I'm going to do is, I'm gonna to look at this and I'm gonna memorize what I see-- how the front legs look, how the back legs look. And I'm gonna look and look back, and I'm gonna do this again and again, until I can set the dog up without looking in the mirror. OK. OK. Oh, I'm sorry, darling. Come here. Till I can set the dog up without looking in the mirror. Come here. Stand. Step. Step. And say, OK, yep. That's what I like. Now, you know, maybe her back legs could be a little bit further under her, but I would say that's good. I would be very happy with that stack. So that's step one, is to memorize that. OK. Once you have that memorized, you can train it. Now, your dog-- you know, if it's not trained, it may not easily walk into the stack. It may take a little bit of time. But eventually, just by the process of doing it again and again, the dog at some point is gonna stand the way you want it to. And then you'll be able to see what-- that is what I want. And then you can go back and really try to train it. But understanding what the picture is that you're trying to get, and being able to read it from the front, is step one. That's very important. Actually, um, can you guys bring the mirror over here for me? No-- oh, I'm sorry. Not that mirror. That other mirror. There, yeah. We have another mirror, so-- so what I'm going to show you, which is really interesting, is now-- you gotta picture what she looks like from the side. And I'm gonna show you what that looks like from the front, and I think you're going to be surprised that when you see it from the front it may not be what you would expect it to be. That's it. That's it. OK. Come here, Daph. Come here, Daph. Come here, ne. Stand. Come on, step. Step. Let's walk in again. That wasn't a good one. Either that-- either it's a wobbly mirror, or that wasn't a great one. Stand. Good. Good. Good. Step. Step. Step. Good. Right there. Now, her front's not absolutely perfect-- there we go. OK. So, what I want you to see is that-- stay-- first of all, that back leg looks like it's way far back. It's not way far back. Now, I mean, on another dog it may be a different thing, depending on the dog and the angulation that the dog is supposed to have, that the dog does have. But this right here-- that hock is coming straight down off her butt. But yet it-- doesn't it look like it's far back. So again, this is just an illustration of why you need to go through this exercise. So when you're standing there baiting, you're baiting the dog the way it should be. OK. Good girl. Thank you, guys. That's good. So-- well, I mean, if I have a little dog, the martingale, I think, is what they use. I mean, they use the martingales on the little dogs. I don't have a little dog. The collar with the Resco is what I use. I don't use a snap because it's happened, as it just happened with Phoebe, that it just comes off. So I use a leash on the collar. And I use a choke chain, because I can place it the way I want. It's different when you have little dogs, because you're always on top of them. So I guess they use-- they use those martingales because they're always on top of the dog, whereas I'm putting the collar underneath the dog. Let me just make a couple points about this exercise of doing this with the mirror. You are gonna have to do this frequently. Not just for yourself, but because-- especially if you have a puppy-- they change. And big dogs change, too. I mean, certainly, up to three or four years old, those animals will change a lot. The back muscles will come in, the ribs will spring. What is correct for stacking today may not be tomorrow. Particularly with puppies, they tend to grow like this. They get long, and then rear, and then front. Long, rear, front. So if you're in a place in your puppy's development where they're high in the rear-- which happens, and it's not a structural fault, it's just it's a puppy, and they tend to be higher. I mean, the bull terrier puppies go through stages where the entire shoulder and front leg area looks like it came from a different dog, like it's a big quarter horse rear and a tiny little thoroughbred front. You can do things about that. You can stack them a little-- stacked further-- with the legs further out in the back. That will lower that rear down. You can bring one foot under. That will bring that top line down around this way, rather than sticking up in the air. So, there are things you can do. But you always have to be assessing. Karen Acabellas is here. Say hi, Karen. Hi. She leads our handling class that we have every Tuesday night, and she can-- she's been looking at my puppies, and we will-- one weekend, one day, we'll be like well this is the-- oh my gosh, that's an-- oh no, it's the other one. Because literally, every week they change. And if you're not watching them and making adjustments in you handling, you potentially could be not presenting them the best you could. Let's talk about training the step. So last time-- last time we met, we were just-- all we wanted was that the puppy stood still. We just wanted the puppy still. That was the only criterion, that they stand still. And then we tried to have them set their feet a little bit. And then we put a little duration on it. But still-- basically, we were working just on them standing still. Come here, mom. So Bijoux has been shown a couple times, and she has a Major. And she was shown at specialties, and one time she was Winners Bitch for a point, and another time she was Winners Bitch for three points. So she's on her way. She's 11 months old now, and she needs to sniff where her grandmother dropped stuff. So I'm gonna show you the process that I use to train. There's a lot of different ways to do this. Come here. But the way that I do it is, I train the front feet first. So all I'm asking for is, get those front feet in. Step up. Good girl. Now, you can tell that I've been working with her on those back feet. But all I'm worried about is getting those front feet first. Stand. So I want her to step a little bit. Stand. Good. Good, good, good, good, good. OK. Good. So I worked on that a lot-- just the front feet, I didn't worry so much about the back feet. I just worried about the front feet. And again, we'll talk more about the release. But you may remember from the last episode, I've taught her a release so that-- this is something we have to work on, so that she'll stay until I release her, so I can get her head into position. Stand. So, I'm going to ask her to stay, and then because she has a release, I can move her head around. And look at how different the picture looks just by moving that head that much. Look at that head versus that head. One's a beautiful head-- come here. Come. Stand. This is a little bit weak. That's gorgeous. Big difference, just moving the head that much. OK. And that's how come I can move her head and set her front feet, because she has a release. Because she has a verbal release, and she will hold her position until I release her, so I can move her around with my hand, with the bait. Hi, baby. So, then once I have that front feet-- and, you know, you can only train one thing at a time, OK. So, we get the front feet. And, you know, that took a few weeks of just doing that. Come on. Stand. And then we start worrying about the back feet. Now, I happen to be happy with her back feet the way they are. It's not about the positioning of the feet, it's about the topline. So, the fact that one foot is a little under-- actually, on a puppy this age, especially-- looks kind of nice. Now, that's a little stretched, so I'm going to ask her-- at first, I would have taken this, OK. But where she is now, I've already stepped past this, and I'm gonna ask her to do it again. So I'm just gonna change it and I'm gonna ask her to do it again. Stand. Now, see that foot stuck up there? I'm just going to give her a chance and see if she fixes it, because we've been working on it. Good. I'll take that. I like that. Now, let me explain this, because it's hard to talk and train at the same time. You can only train one thing at a time. So, I worked on those front feet-- the front feet, the front feet. I didn't worry about the back feet. I just wanted the front feet to be underneath her this way, and her rolled over her front. And, you know, relatively equal, but I don't really care about equal that much. But I wanted that look of her rolled over the front with her front feet under. So I trained the release and I trained her front feet. Once I was pretty sure that 90% of the time she was gonna hit it properly with her front feet, I cut that off and I raised the criteria. Now I didn't want just the front feet, I wanted the back feet. And sometimes it takes them a while to figure out why they're not getting it. But when you keep breaking them, and breaking them, and then they walk into it-- so, if she comes up here-- come here. I know, I know. It's boring. It's not about you right now, though. You have to help other people. Come here. Stand. So, OK. That's-- unfortunately, she's pretty well trained at this point. But if she walks in like that, I'm just gonna break her and walk her in again. Come on. Stand. Oh, there you go. Now you're gonna get clicked. That was a slow click, but-- OK. Yes. So let's do it again. Come here. Stand. Now, I don't like that, because her show side is under, and doesn't look as nice. So I'm gonna step her up, see, give her another chance. Come on. Come here. Stand. Yes. Good. See her kick back her foot like that? So, she's learning to do it. Good girl. Good girl. So again, I don't-- I wouldn't say that I do a lot to really train the back feet, as much as just by the process of elimination the dog figures it out. You just keep trying, and trying, and trying. Yes. One person has a Sheltie-- Mm-hmm. --wondering how to manage with all the hair, and seeing the proper stack. I think you need to consult with a breed mentor, or understand your dog. What did you say, honey? Yes. Yeah. What do you think, Karen? Karen also has naked dogs. I mean, I think that it's something that you would know if you were experienced, right through the hair. You would not-- Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Karen and her daughter Jenna have bred many, many Vizslas that have done very well, so-- and she's taught handling for a long time. And her daughter also does professional handling on a part-time basis. So, yeah. I mean, it's something that you will-- you'll learn to understand. And the best thing to do is have a breed mentor help you. I do see you, Gina, hang on. I mean, I just-- as an aside-- come here. Come here, sweetheart. Do you want to stick with me for a second? Do you want a-- see if she wants a glass of water while we take some questions. She can have a regular leash, too. Go with Auntie Heidi. Go on. Go with Auntie Heidi. No, no. No, you're done. You're coming back. You're coming back. So when I am-- I have jerky, let's go. My first show dog-- Let's go. My first show dog-- a very, very prominent person in the breed helped me. And she stacked up the dog for me and said, tell me what you see. And I'm like, mm, you know, she's a little loaded in the shoulder, and there's a dip behind the withers. And she's like, OK. And then she stacked her up again, and she said, tell me what you see now. And I'm like, oh, she's really nice. If you can get somebody in your breed to stack up your dog for you, and show you the way it should look, that really, I would say, is the best solution. And to have a breed mentor is priceless. Do you recommend a different free stack strategy for the free stack at the end of the down and back, much closer to the judge, versus a free stack in the line? Oh my gosh. So, that's a great question. Um, it's a great question which we will talk about next week, because next week we're gonna do movement. And we're gonna show you how you-- strategies for free stack. And that's a really good point, that there are different strategies for free stacks, depending on the virtues of your dog, and frankly, whether you are in a specialty ring or an all-breed ring. So, I wanna-- so I wanna talk about a couple other things. So phase one was that we set the front feet. Phase two is we got the back feet. Now, I want to be in a position where I can fix it a little. So, one of the things that I teach my dogs to do is yield to pressure, and that's really important. And she's just beginning to learn this, so you're going to see the process. Stand up here. So if I'm here-- and let's say I want that that foot that's closest to the camera a little further out, and I don't want to totally reset her. I'm going to pull just a little bit. Good girl. And then I'm gonna click her for yielding to that pressure. Now, I know that that-- what I wound up with is not what I want. I mean, you know, she was-- had that leg too far out. But I'm trying to teach her that if I-- stand-- that if I just wanna move that front foot just a little bit-- good girl-- so that I can do that. Yes. So you're pulling the leash ever so slightly backwards. Away. Away. So, I'm actually pulling her-- stand. All right. So now this foot is behind, so I'm gonna-- oh, yes. You're too smart. So even though-- I mean, her feet are pretty good. I'm still going to pull it a little bit, just to show you. Good. And you know, the-- where people go wrong with this is that they look for too much. All I want is the slightest amount of pressure I can give to get any movement at all. You don't-- I'm not asking you to pull her off her feet, but I'm going to pull back this way slightly. Yes. Good girl. Good girl. OK. And, you know, eventually-- the way that will happen, the way that will evolve-- Yeah, I know. You're just gonna help yourself to the entire bait bag. Come here. Come on. Come on. Eventually, the way that will evolve-- stand-- is that I won't have to-- I won't have to pull on the leash. Come here, baby. I know, it's a long time for a baby puppy. Good job, kicking back your back feet. See how she's beginning to learn to get those back feet back? Good girl. Eventually, just a little shift in your body, and she'll change it for you. Good girl. Nice job. Nice job. So basically, the two tools that I really have in my toolbox for free stacking is, yield to pressure, and just resetting it. I don't do a lot of this backing into the dog that people do. To me, it gets the dogs posting and with their head up, and I don't want that. So, why? Granted, you know, it seems very satisfying, because you get a faster result by stepping into them. But again, I-- what will happen when you step-- when you step into them-- stand-- is that they tend to lean back. Come on. See how she goes like this? And I really don't want her doing that even for a second in the ring. I don't wanna encourage that at all. So I'm not a big fan of stepping into the dog, although I know a lot of people do. I have a saying, because I-- you know, I do dog training seminars as well as agility seminars and puppy culture seminars. And I have a saying that dog training is binary. There's zeros and ones. There's not right and wrong, there's zeros and ones. So there's simply things that produce a result for the dog, as in a treat, and things that, nothing. It's zero, nothing happened. So if the dog comes in and gives me a stack that's all bunched up, it's a zero. Big deal. I'll just try it again. They learn very quickly where the ones are, that way. If you start trying to fix them a lot, and step into them and pressure them into, you know, getting it, manipulating them-- it tends to back them off, and make them not as vivacious, when you worry about that a lot. Now, all that having been said, I do find-- and this kind of goes back to Suzanne's question a bit-- that somebody at a handling class once gave me advice-- and actually, it was good advice-- that if I hand stacked my puppy, if I fixed my puppy's feet a lot, that eventually they would learn what I wanted to do. That it would actually help them learn a little bit where I wanted their feet. I didn't do that with this puppy, but with that puppy years ago I did. And you know what, it actually helped a little bit. So, you know, there's no harm in hand stacking. And as we're gonna talk about later, we're going to go over hand stacking, and we're also going to talk about how you can kind of do a hybrid stack. And you're going to be doing that a lot with puppies, because frankly, when you, you know-- when push comes to shove at a show, this puppy's all trained here. Eh, you know, in a line up with 20 other dogs at 10 months old, she may or may not hold her stack. She may not. She may be crazy when she gets there, could happen. OK. I wanna to emphasize a couple things before I put her away, because I'm training and talking at the same time. So if I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry, but I just want to be sure that I hit two points. One of which-- you can only train one thing at a time. So don't try and get it all at once. I understand. It's quite possible that something may fall apart, or it may not happen right away. Don't worry about it. Just work on where you are. Once you've got the front feet, then worry about the-- as for the back feet. And once you have that, ask for her to roll over. Ask-- then ask for more duration on the stack. Don't be asking for it all at the same time. It will work for you. And there is no substitute for repetitions over time. It's not gonna happen in one day, you know. You're going to go, and you're going to cry the first time you go to the handling class. We've all been there. But they all learn. I mean, you saw how Phoebe comes out. But she-- she'll-- she could learn as well as this dog, and in fact, you saw her start to get the idea, right here. That's her very first time ever show stacking. So it takes time. It takes time, and they're puppies. And, you know, if-- people will ask me, well, what do I do when I take my puppy to a show and he doesn't behave? It's like, well, I mean, why are you going there. It's for good experience for the puppy. It's not because you're you think you're going to get your Grand Championship when the puppy is six months old-- I mean, I hope not. I hope you're going there to practice. And yeah, I mean, you know, maybe you'll get some points. But you're making an investment in your puppy. You're making an investment in the show dog that they're going to be someday. So if they don't behave or whatever, hey, it's just information. You go home and you train it. For now, that's what you do. And then you come back with all the Best in Show wins, right Bij? That's right. OK. So, let's put her up and get Nina out and-- ow. She's-- she's like, no, not going. There you go. Auntie Heidi has you. And we'll take some questions. OK. So, um, the first question. Someone who has a setter-- Mm-hmm. He taught his-- she taught her now three-year-old to stack, then step up with the front feet to have the rear out far enough. Right. Is there a potential issue that may arise with training from the rear forward? From the rear forward. I'm not sure I understand that. From what-- she means, like, what she's doing? No, that's fine. That's exactly about what we're doing. And with an Irish setter, you know, they're gonna have those hocks way out there. And that's another issue is that, generally speaking, most breeds for a show stance-- we're gonna wanna have their back feet a little further out than would be normally comfortable for the dog. So, I mean, there's no-- there's no problem with anchoring the back feet and then asking them to step forward with their front feet. I mean, it's just another way of approaching it. I mean, I tend to, you know, work with the front first, and then the back. But you could do it that way, too. It's not a big deal. OK. We have a couple of questions about the tail. OK. One is, are you training the tail to come up. Mm-hmm. And then on the other end of it, how do you teach a free stack with the tail down for breeds in which the tail must be down, not horizontal to the back or over the back. Well, I mean, simple-- simple answer to the question, which is that you just wait for it to happen and you shape it. That would be the last thing I would shape, you know, would be the tail. But, I mean, you're going to shape for expression and tail. So I would worry about getting the front feet, then I would get the back feet. Again, you're gonna need to train your release. If you haven't seen the first DVD, explain how to do it-- the "Killer Free Stack" DVD. You need to train a release-- that the dog has a verbal release, so that you can anchor them and move them, and get them over their front end. So now you've got the front end, you've got them over their front end, you've got the rear where you want it-- now, start waiting for them to put their tail down. And frankly, the longer you stand here, if-- once you start getting duration on it-- that tail's gonna start going beeee-- and then you just click when it reaches the place where you want it. And again, you know, if your dog has a gay tail, I mean, and it shouldn't-- you know, I mean, I think that comes under the heading of like Phoebe's front. I mean, it's a nice dog. I mean, it's got a lot of good things. It so happens it really does have this one fault that we're not going to be able to totally fix it. But in general, on a free stack, you can train them to come in with their tail down. I mean, they're still gonna travel with their tail up and stuff, but-- Uh, how do you handle dogs that will lean to one side or the other in the rear? Lean. Well again, same thing. You just wait for them to stand square. It's-- OK. So, everything is a criterion. Everything that everyone has mentioned is a criterion. And if you just stand here-- and if the dog is leaning, they get nothing, you reset them. They're leaning, they get nothing, you reset them. They're gonna-- you're going to find that one where they're gonna stand straight, and you're going to click it. Now let me just also point out at this point, it really does help if your dog is operant. I mean, again, with these puppies, they're Puppy Culture puppies. They started from four weeks old literally with the box game, the clicker. So they get it, that they have to keep trying. It can be more difficult if you have a dog that hasn't had that experience. But you know what? If you don't fix them, if you give them a chance and you just start grabbing and clicking the right things, they're going to catch on very quickly to the game of offering. I mean, you could play the box game with them to get them more operant, or really, frankly, you could just do this to get them more operant. But the more they're operant and offering behaviors, that's gonna be-- sometimes our hardest task in the beginning is to open up dogs that maybe aren't that operant. OK. So, I want to talk a little bit about troubleshooting. Let-- well, let me bring Mina out. Hi Mina. How you doing, girlfriend. And we're gonna talk a little bit about-- hi, how are you, sweetie. Now, Mina has not-- she's been shown a couple of times, but she's-- maturity-wise-- she's Bijoux's sister-- she's behind Bijoux maturity-wise. So she's lovely, obviously, but she is not-- hasn't had as much ring time or experience as Bijoux has. So, stand. Good girl. Stay. Good girl. So she's still-- come here, darling-- she's still learning the back feet, although she's doing pretty good today. Come here. And she's obviously a little distracted, which, it's a puppy. You know, she wants to sniff. Big deal. Like, I'm not gonna lose my mind. Stand. Good. Now, again, those back legs are out a little further. But where she is right now-- I'm just pretty happy that she's-- high. High. OK, so-- good girly. OK. Yes. Good girl. Nicely done. So, troubleshooting. I get a lot of people saying that their dogs come into the free stack and their fronts are sloppy. And there's a few different reasons that can be, and there's a few different solutions for it. So-- come here, Mina. Come on. So in puppies-- come here, darling. Stand up. So, you'll see that she actually is toeing out a little bit there, on the right. And she's actually toeing out a little on both sides. And I can fix this. Come here. Good girl. Come here. Come here. She doesn't like it. Come here. Come here. That's a girl. Come on, mama. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl. So, I can get that straighter if she'll hold it. Good girl. But-- and in a puppy, you're probably gonna have to do that, because what happens with-- especially with heavier-chested breeds-- is that this space-- come here, darling. Come this way. There's actually a space over here that will-- when the ribs spring-- will come out. She will have more muscle and volume here, and it will literally take this elbow and push it forward so the toes point forward. They're puppies. There's nothing you can really do about that. It's a structural fact of life. That's how they are. So, what I do-- let me get rid of my clicker. Come here, Mins. Now this is not the best dog, actually, to demonstrate this, simply because she's not that well trained. But when you first come in the ring and you're showing your dog-- all right, you've got your side. Nobody knows that her toes are not pointing forward right now. All I care is that topline and that stack. OK. Then, when the judge has come down-- looked at the dogs from the side, and is coming down the front-- or if they're coming down the front first-- then I'm just gonna reach down and just push this one in, hold this, and present the front. OK. From the side-- and I'll show you what that looks like from the side. Come here, girlfriend. Let's get some more cookies. They just say-- they're like, this show is the best. It's our favorite TV show. We love this TV show. We get a lot of food. Stand. Come on. Stand. All right. I'm gonna take-- I'm going to ask her for a little bit more than that, because I think she's a little past giving me just that. OK, that's good. OK. So, I'm not going to worry about-- so now, here, the judge has come by, the judge has walked over here. And now I see the judge going back down to the front of the line, and I'm going to show you what it looks like. Imagine-- cut to front view. She actually didn't stop that bad. Stand up here. Give us a little worse front. Come here, baby. Come here, baby. OK. So there's-- yeah, there. Come here-- stand front. Stand front, sweetheart. So you see how those are for-- easty westy? So now I see the judge coming over here-- so now I'm just gonna clean that up like that. And now I have a nice front. Her side-- she actually, at this moment has-- happens to have a leg crunched under her on this side. Don't care about that. I'm just going to get this nice. So, that's your puppies, OK. That's your average puppy that, you know-- that will change. And you won't always have to fix that front, although you probably always do want to check and make sure that that front looks good. Some dogs have structural issues that-- you know, they just don't have good fronts, and you might have to always fix that as the judge is coming down to look down the front line. And that's a possibility. But with a puppy, most likely if they're coming in like this, it's developmental. Now, one girl who had an Aussie did write in about that. And I think a lot of Aussies have that kind of, almost, like, lax-- like, looseness in the front. Their whole front ends are kind of like this a lot of times. And so they'll stand like this. And what she said was that, he doesn't do it when she's in the ring, and she free stacks. But like, when she's training, he'll tend to go like this. And what that can be is an issue of a lot of dogs when they're in operant mode-- meaning to say when they're actually training, and thinking-- they can be kind of flat. They can be kind of dumpy, like, OK, my feet are here. Give me the cookie. In that case, if you've got a dog that is capable of pulling himself up over his feet but when you're training him he's like Eeyore-- as long as you feel the dog understands the stack, and understands the stop and free stack, and has all the criteria down, that he's giving you the free stack pretty reliably-- what I would do is, if you're so lucky as for the dog to have toy drive, I would switch to a toy. I'd lose the food, and I'd now train the dog in drive. I use food in the beginning to train because it's just very difficult to train it with a toy. It's easier with food. But once it's trained, you will tend to get a little more sparkle if you use a toy to bait instead of food. And I do want to show you another thing about-- speaking of strategy, and again, we'll-- come here. Come. Stand. So, our breed standard calls for both a gentle profile-- come here, sweetheart. Stand up. She's like, hey, I'm not done yet, Heidi. Don't be picking up that leash. Sorry. She's so-- Heidi's just-- Come here. Stand up, stand up. Come on. Step. Step a little bit. Good girl. Right there. Good girl. But it also calls for-- from the front, it should be filled. It should be filled all the way down to the bottom, and it should be egg-shaped. Now, when you have a dog-- it's OK, darling. No, it's yours-- it's your house mate. It's OK. See, now, that's the terrier look that you want, right there. So I just want you to focus on the head, here, because she's just about done through the body. Stand up. And you can see that it's a very pretty curve, but I wanna show you how she looks from this side. Stand up. Look at how much power that head has on that side. You would never know, looking at the other side, how really powerful that head is, because that solid smut looks very narrow. So in a specialty ring, I would be much more likely to show her on her white side. I'd show her on her off side. You know, likewise, your dog may have unfortunate markings on his back that make his topline not look good. I mean, there could be a lot of reasons why you might want to show the dog facing the other way. Now I'm gonna-- I say this with the caveat that, if you're in a group ring or at an all-breed show with a cranky all-breed judge, I mean, I don't recommend doing that. But if you're with a knowledgeable breeder judge at a specialty, I think they can really appreciate you showing-- again, I'm not lying about this dog, I'm just saying, my gosh, look at that head, which you never really could appreciate from the other side. Stand up. So-- I mean, that's just a gorgeous head. Classic build all the way down, I mean, couldn't be nicer. Scissors bite too, which is amazing. Again, narrow. Oh. Oh, well, yeah. No, she's OK. Yeah, she's got a nice turn, but-- you know, and it doesn't help either that the white comes down a little on the top, so it almost makes her head look smaller. I know there's a bug on your tail, but it's OK. You're a good girl. You're a good girl. All right. So I just want to show you one other thing. Yeah, you can take this one. Talking about fronts, let's go back to fronts. Let me have Phoebe again, because I just want to talk-- I just want to talk here a little bit about this. So-- I know. Please don't bite me. So remember when I was talking about the puppies, and I was talking about the fronts and how-- that they can kind of do this on the front, when they-- now, that is different than this front. Come here. Come here, sweetheart. I want you to show people your beautiful front legs. Now, look. I mean, this has a lot of nice things about her, this dog. I really-- you know, look at that-- look at that front-on expression. Look at that terrier type, look at the ears, look at the eyes. I mean, there's just-- the round bone is beautiful. But you can see that these front leg bones actually are not straight. And that's not something that is developmental. I mean, that's not going to change. I mean, that's why she's so adorably up on her toes, because she's got-- she's got that-- [BARKING] It's OK. It's the neighbors' tractor. You're OK, Phoebe. It's all OK. Well, you can look at one leg. So, you can see the one leg. But I mean, there's a lot to like about this bitch. But I'm just saying, you're not gonna change that front. This is-- this is the way it is. It's not like that there's some way that you're gonna stack it that's going to be different. But still, I mean, it's a pretty little dog. All right, you stinker. Downs asks, do you build duration at each step? Tips to prevent rapid foot movements. Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Well-- and that's kind of what I was thinking might go with the last one. So, excellent question, and something I wanted to get to. So-- hold on, let me just have a sip of water. Do I build duration at each step. Um, that is really kind of your choice, if you want to build duration at each step or not. I build enough-- I would say I build three to five seconds of duration at each step, at least, because that's the only way, to me, that you can be sure that the dog really knows it. And the way that I do that is-- if you saw the free stack-- the first free stack video, I had the "Attention is a Behavior"-- oh no, sorry. That was in the "Attention is a Behavior," it wasn't the free stack video. In my "Attention is a Behavior," I show how I build that duration with attention, which is exactly how I do it with the free stack. So, I start with one second. First, I just click every time the dog hits it. Then once I'm pretty sure I'm solid on that, I click when they hit it and I count to one. And then I click when they hit it and I count to two. And then once I've got that, I click when they hit it and I count to three. So now I've got three seconds of duration. Now, you can't just go from three seconds, and four seconds, and five, because the dog will figure it out and break. They're not-- they can understand the linear progression of time, but what they can't figure out is the average moving forward. So now, once I have three seconds, I'll do one second, five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, five seconds-- and I'll bounce around between five and one second pretty randomly. And that's about as much duration as I put on it until I am actually in the show ring, and to the point where I'm showing the dog. And I'm just now really trying to get some duration on the puppies, at 11 months old. I mean, Bijoux's been to three or four shows, and I'm starting to work on that handling class every Tuesday. We're starting to practice on the side a little more duration. But realistically, I mean, you know, my dogs are well over a year, probably closer to two years, before they really have any kind of duration on the stack. And I'll segue into this-- if we can bring Daphne back out, I'm gonna show you-- there is a-- you never really need more than a few seconds of duration in the show ring. The reason being that a free stack only really lasts-- it, like, has a shelf life of a few seconds. What will happen is, they'll come in, they're free stacking, and then gradually, imperceptibly, this starts happening. The whole back-- they start sinking down, and they start just being like, whoa. Like, again, the Eeyore effect. So you'll notice when professional handlers are in the ring with their dogs, they'll wait-- they'll watch the judge. They'll have-- they'll just walk the dog in right at the right time, and then when the judge walks by, they'll break the dog and reset the dog up, because you always want that stack to be fresh so that those back muscles are pulled up. That's what makes it exciting, and that's what makes it gorgeous. I'm gonna show you this on Daphne. I can move over? OK. All right. Well, so I have-- well, I have just a couple more things. We're not going to get to hand stacking today. We're going to have to break-- do that next time, because it's-- you know, we still have some questions, and this took a while. So I'm gonna show you. So-- come here, Daph. I'll just stack you up the hill. So, stand. OK. So I'm just gonna stand here for a while with here-- oh, first let me-- OK. Good girl. Good girl. So, I'm gonna stand here for a while with her. And what you're gonna see is as I'm talking to you, she's going to start looking less and less fabulous. I mean, that back is going to start to come down. She's-- yeah. Stay. Stay. She's like, uhh, uhh. See these wrinkles starting to happen over here? Step up. Yeah. So, at-- the longer she stands, the longer-- the more that back is just going to start-- right behind the withers, you're gonna start to see it go down, go down. Can you guys see it a little bit? So she's starting to, like, get a little bit tired. I mean, I could train her to stand here all day, but you absolutely don't need to, because the judge is not going to sit there and-- we hope-- stare at your dog for 30 seconds. I mean, you know, they're gonna look at your dog for a couple seconds, and then they're gonna go look at the next dog. And then you're going to go like this. Stand up. And then you're gonna get another good stack, like that, and give her a piece of food. And then you're gonna watch. And the judge is gonna be looking-- OK. And then you're gonna move your dog. And then you're gonna set him up again. So, stand. I mean, you know, so you're-- and then you can sometimes play with your bait a little to get a little more pizzazz out of the dog. But duration is not-- it's not like obedience. You don't need a lot of duration. The only thing that can happen, if you're not careful to at least get duration on just behaving in the ring, is you can get brat barking. Which, we've had that happen before. But that's another-- that's another episode. Right, we know all about brat barking. You know, again, I'm going to talk more about hand stacking versus free stacking in the next episode. But, you know, in general, the reason I like free stacking is because you do get a prettier-- you just get a prettier look. Like, when I start messing with her feet-- I can mess with her feet, but you know, she's just not as happy. You know, it's harder to get her looking really-- I mean, it looks a little stilted, right. I mean, even though technically she's in position, I can move this leg a little further back, maybe-- stay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know. But, yeah. I mean, there it is. The tail is down. I mean, she's just like, uhh, you touched me. I mean, technically, her feet are in the right position, but she's just really not that thrilled about this whole situation. I mean, maybe this foot needs to go back a little bit. Good girl. There you go. Yeah. I mean, but-- uuh, mehh. Good girl. OK. You know, again, that's not to say that some breeds-- particularly smaller ones-- that you couldn't get a really nice hand stack. I don't practice it that much with my dogs. But in general, you're gonna get that gorgeous "looking out over the horizon" look with a free stack. We're gonna talk more about this next time-- hold on, sweetie-- in the next-- in the coming episodes. But one of the things that you have to be very aware of is the difference between stacking up and downhill. So, let me just show you. If I come over here and stack this dog going this way-- stand-- I just want you to see how that looks. She's running downhill. It's not as pretty-- come here-- as if I'm stacking uphill. Stand. My topline is always gonna be better stacking uphill. When you go out in the ring-- let me show you another one here-- you always have to be looking for holes in the ground. You don't want to get stuck with your front feet-- come here-- with a hole in the ground. So, there she is. Her front feet are in the hole-- a hole in the ground. See how that makes her front end look lower? I can see it in the mirror, there. You never want to have that. You want to actually-- you actually always want to be looking for a little rise to put the front feet on. Stand. Step up. Step. Come on. So, if I-- if I saw this little piece, I'd be like, ooh, that's a nice little place to put my dog's front feet. Give her a little bit-- a little bit of a lift in the front. They always look prouder. It's like when you see a dog standing up on a rock. So when you go in the ring-- I mean, there's a huge hole right here. Can I use this hole, honey? Will you be able to see her in this hole? Come here. Come here. Oh, there. Oh, yeah. So you know, like, if you're under the tent and that's your place to stand, move. Go someplace else. What you should be doing-- come. OK. Good girl. What you should be doing before you ever go in the ring is scoping out the ring, and knowing where you want to stand. You know, you don't have a choice as far as the order of where you are, but-- you know, if you're the last dog in line and you're stuck standing the wrong-- you know, in a hole, just go over there. I mean, there's no rule that says you have to stand right behind the dog in front of you. I mean, it's harder in the group ring because you're stuck, you know, pretty much in a small area. But there's a strategy to finding a nice place that's either level, slightly uphill, or if it's not uphill, there might be a little rise that can get your-- I mean, it's-- the dog isn't-- if the dog is facing downhill, you might look for a little place to at least get those front feet up a little. Or frankly, again, in a specialty ring in particular, I'll stack my dog up the hill. I mean, I really don't care if I'm stacked the right way or not. Cranky all-breed judges and group judges might not appreciate it, but in the specialty ring, I think normally the judges appreciate it. OK, Daphne. Thank you very much. That was awfully good. OK, you can have her. All right, so we have a bunch of questions. OK, so, um, any tips on getting the dog to pull over shoulder rather than stretch the neck? To roll over their front feet? Well, if they're stretching their neck, you probably have the food too close. You're probably sticking the food right in the face, and the dog doesn't really understand doing that. If the front feet are placed properly and you can get far enough back and do this, then that will bring the head down. And it should-- what you want to do is you want to start with the food a little bit high, and then roll it down a little bit to get that head over that way. If you're doing this, and pushing it in and pulling it back, that's why the dog is doing that. You want to start and almost come up, and then down. Great question, by the way. Patty agrees with comments about using a toy instead of bait, but wants to know how to hold it when you are stacking. How you use it in the ring, we'll go over in subsequent episodes. But how you would use it as a reinforcer is the same way you would use the food. I would have it, I would squeak it. I would do whatever I have to do. When I have what I want, I would mark it with a verbal-- yes-- and then I'd throw the toy for the dog. So the dog gets the toy, because it's the getting the toy and the drive that is going to allow them to stand up over their front. But if your dog does have a really, really solid stay release, then what I would do is I would do it-- I would do it this way, and I would not throw it at the dog. I would hold it out here, I would do my verbal release-- OK-- and then I'd drop it there so the dog can have it. But that assumes that you have trained that to be a rock solid stay. If you are always releasing the dog forward-- I mean, you're gonna get a dog that starts inching up on you and stuff, unless you've done that other step of training the stay first. So, the way around that is just throw it toward them, so at least they're not breaking forward. All right. Thanks everyone. That was great, really enjoyed it. Obviously I could talk all night about it, but we look forward to see you next Tuesday night at 6:30 eastern day time. Say bye, Daphne. Bye.