# Stand for Exam trouble



## Elana55 (Jan 7, 2008)

I own a well trained but VERY friendly dog. We are going to start competition obedience and one of the exercises is "stand for exam." In this exercise you have your dog off leash. You put her in a stand on your left side in Heel position. You then tell her to STAY and walk six feet in front of her, turn and face her and stand still, arms at your sides. 

The judge walks in and touches the dog on her head, withers and rump and keeps walking. Jusdge then tells you to return to your dog and you walk completely around the dog and stand in heel position until the judge says, "Exercise finished." 

I can stand and stay my dog anywhere, including a moving stand. The problem is that when the "judge" or other person approaches her she wants to make friends and so breaks position turning her head, snffing the "judge's" arm or hand and she will sometimes move her feet. 

I have done a pile of training and I have gone over to corrections for breaking this cue and for being overly friendly. It works. Some of the time.

She has a good stay (sit, down and stand) until someone approaches her. She will even stay if a dog approaches her. 

I am looking for suggestions to keep this EXTREMELY friendly dog in a stand and STAY (no moving of feet and keeping focus on me) when a stranger walks up to her and touches her head, withers and back. Specifically what I want to communicate to her is that she MUST stay and NOT move and NOT interact with anyone until she is given her release word.


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## trainingjunkie (Feb 10, 2010)

If you stand her and step away, can you re-approach and touch her head, shoulders, rump, then go back to your starting position, pause, and then return? If she can't do it with you, she won't be able to do it with a stranger.

When I started with an over-friendly beast, I remained in heel postion next to my standing dog and looped a lead under my dog's hips and shorted the lead. Then I had a familiar handler head touch. My dog couldn't make much of a mistake with the short lead at neck and hips. When my dog was successful, even with that level of help, I used a marker word and gave a treat. Then the handler did head/shoulder. Then head/shoulder/rump. After my dog was solid, I started stepping away without the support. Then, I did the touching. Then a familiar person. Then a stranger.

Moving very slowly and letting the dog be VERY successful creates a solid stand for exam.


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## Elana55 (Jan 7, 2008)

I can leave her in a stand/stay and walk over to the truck and even out the door and back in and she does not break it. She does not break it with a resistance stay and people coming up to her (you have the dog in a stand/stay and put light pressure on the leash-flat collar so she 'fights' to retain her stay). She will not break it when she is in a stand and in heel position. 

She breaks it as I stated. When someone "new" approaches and off leash. She even stays (off leash) when she knows the person who approaches (has ever met them before). It is a new person thing.

We have a match tomorrow and this will be on the agenda.. more than once. LOL

Retaining the stand is not the issue (she does not go down or go into a sit at all). Retaining the Stay and not interacting is the issue. 

Just looking for ideas. First show is in a week. She does 190 plus scores if she does not NQ for the stand for exam.


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## trainingjunkie (Feb 10, 2010)

Just so I understand, if she is on leash or in heel position, she holds when strangers approach? She can do a full stranger exam if you are beside her?


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## Elana55 (Jan 7, 2008)

As full as is required for a CD (three pats as the person walks by). She will keep her eyes on mine and stand. She did it last night in this position with a loose dog running around her.. and later when (same dog) got loose again and I was standing facing her (as in the true test) and the dog ran between us! 

NONE of this is fear. I want to make this clear. She just wants to interact/play with the new person. 

It is in her soul to believe no human would do her harm AND that every human MUST want a German Shepherd dog as their very very VERY bestest friend in the whole wide world.


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## Bella'smama (Feb 16, 2010)

TIme for a clicker loaded w/ treats and teach the "WATCH ME" command.. If she cant watch you , then she is not fully under your control.. 

The watch me, will help her come back to you if she looses focus.. Its a "HEY- YOOOO HOOOO Look at mama " command.. Used to bring the dogs focus back on your so that she knows YOU are in control and you are assuring her that its safe.. I think she should be able to "LOOK" at the examiner and then focus back on you.. for a dog to IGNORE someone like that would be almost IMPOSSIBLE to expect . WE cant have her move her feet, So the watch me would remind her that she is STILL expected to be in command mode.. 

Thats only if the judge allows you to talk and keep her there during the exam , and if they dont.. that doesnt sound fair.. Even police dogs are expected to be that 100% .. 

GOOD LUCK.


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

Elana55 said:


> As full as is required for a CD (three pats as the person walks by). She will keep her eyes on mine and stand. She did it last night in this position with a loose dog running around her.. and later when (same dog) got loose again and I was standing facing her (as in the true test) and the dog ran between us!
> 
> NONE of this is fear. I want to make this clear. She just wants to interact/play with the new person.
> 
> ...


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## MafiaPrincess (Jul 1, 2009)

We do CARO rally and it requires the possibility of SFE at the advanced level. Cider was my first dog ever and rally was the first thing we ever tried together. 

Cider and I worked some on SFE when we got her novice title.. it wasn't enough. Didn't realize it till we got to her first trial when we moved up. Did 7 signs got to SFE judge started to walk over Cider wiggled her tush.. wiggled it more.. made a break for it did a swimmer's turn off the judge's lap in her excitement and we NQ'd.

2nd round that day didn't have SFE and we rocked that one. I decided we needed to work on it more. Started doing a rally drop in class. For me they put in a SFE every round. We started having people approach and not touch her c and t for it. Then me moving one step laterally away and repeating it. Moving further away.. have a person approach and not touch..

Then have me c and t beside her when someone barely touched her. Moving a touch away.. tiny touch.. Moving back beside her and them giving her a decent pat.. etc. 

Got to the point after we went through all of that that we could practice week after week with less wiggles. Started asking people at agility trials later that year to help cement it by doing the SFE routine. She'd wiggle her bum and not move.. would keep looking at me. 

Took a while of practice but after all that we started rocking the SFE at trials. It is now something I don't think twice about any more and stop being jealous of other competitors SFE's


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## Elana55 (Jan 7, 2008)

For Formal AKC obedience there are NO second commands. This means when the judge sasy stand your dog and leave when ready you put your dog in a stand/STAY with STAY beind your last command. You then LEAVE your dog with your LAST cue being a combinied hand signal and verbal cue for STAY. 

In Rally you cna slap your leg and talk to the dog. NOT in formal obedience. 

You walk 6 feet in front of your dog and turn and face your dog. YOU CAN GIVE NO MORE CUES OR SIGNALS once you say STAY and LEAVE YOUR DOG. No body stance changes, no verbals. Just stand facing your dog with hands at your sides.. NOT STIFF or MILITARY. 

The judge walks into to your dog.. usually about 4 O'Clock.. and touches your dog on the head, the whthers and the rump and keeps on walking. Judge will then tell you to "return to your dog" and you walk all the way around your dog and back to PERFECT HEEL positioon and your dog does not move and remains standing. Your hands remains at your sides and dog remains in a stand next to you until the judge announces "exercise finished" at which time you QUIETLY release your dog and say "Good Dog" and then go on with the remainder of your exrecise and Novice A routine. 

NO double cues (commands) either verbal or body language (points off). Must be in heel position leaving your dog and when you get back to your dog. Not doing so is points off. IF the dog moves out of her stand she gets Points of or DISQUALIFIES. 

There is no "request" to watch or pay attention etc. There are no corrections. No leash on the dog. What happens happens.. 

We practice this EXTENSIVELY both at home, in the park, every where we go and we will do it tomorrow at a match. 

The issue (as I see it) is that she is OVERLY friendly so when a new person approaches, all bets are off. Staying and standing are WAY less interesting than meeting someone new (anyone). I have even had the person approaching her CORRECT HER.. and she thinks it is all FUN and ATTENTION (BTW this was always an experienced obedience training person.. not someone who did not know dogs). 

Tonight I had her stand and she was HUNGRY. I had her stay, I stood like I need to at a show, and I kept going in with treats and then leaving.. standing there.. treating and retreating.. so MAYBE it was worth her while to pay attention to ME and not other stuff.

Tomorrow at the Match (practice show) I will run her through this routine a bunch of times with the match "judge" approaching both on and off leash and see if we make headway.


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## Shaina (Oct 28, 2007)

Kim was like this. She's slurped match judges from chin to hairline (pretty funny actually, particularly in retrospect with novice obe safely behind us and well on our way to prepping for open), then later as she was half-convinced that _yes_ you really need to freeze all four paws no matter what, she managed this crazy leap toward the judge without seeming to move her body at all...landing back in a perfect square stand just...about 7" closer to the judge...

This is probably not what you want to hear but all I can say is it took practice practice practice with people of varying degrees of novelty and in many different locations...starting with brand new people walking by, then walk closer, walking around, etc. until she could do a full exam with me standing right in front of her, then repeat the whole thing at 6', then at 12-15'. For us, I let her move her head freely and only required that her feet absolutely not move. As usual, far more important than the criteria chosen was the ability to be extremely precise in enforcing it...just like any other behavior, the moment to interrupt/reinforce is when the decision is made, not when the movement has taken place.


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## TooneyDogs (Aug 6, 2007)

The 'judge' needs to help with this one during practice. Ask them to approach the dog slowly....no fast movements, no reaching, no bending, no smile, no talking. 

The hard part of this is that we all want our dogs to interact/enjoy other people.
We don't want them cringing, crawling away or even ducking their heads but, that's a little bit of the approach you have to take....as if the person approaching might not be so nice.


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## RedyreRottweilers (Dec 17, 2006)

Ok, here is how I would do this.

Go back to sit for exam. This is a more stable position and you get less foot movement.

Leave your dog, giving the stay command, just as you would on the stand. Pivot directly in front of her, put food on her face to eat, keep her undivided attention as someone comes and rubs down her back.

Work toward getting the food off her face as the person is approaching and examining. If she goes to look away from you, put the food back on her face. Work this until you can get to the end of the 6 foot lead without her moving in the SIT.

Then go to stand, and do it the same way. Stand directly in front of her, with the food right on her nose and let her be eating it from you while the person approaches. Gradually work towards just standing in front of her with the food out of view. Keep success in mind, don't move too fast. You want her really dialed in on you, so keep the rewards coming fast and steady until she can pay attention to you and ignore the distraction of the examiner.

This is one of those exercises that looks so simple, but it can be a bear to teach to some dogs, esp. the wiggly really friendly ones, or the ones who might want to shrink away.

Good luck!

Here is what our final SFO looks like.

http://www.redyre.com/standFeb15.MPG


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## wvasko (Dec 15, 2007)

> The issue (as I see it) is that she is OVERLY friendly so when a new person approaches, all bets are off. Staying and standing are WAY less interesting than meeting someone new (anyone). I have even had the person approaching her CORRECT HER.. and she thinks it is all FUN and ATTENTION


If dog still thinks it is all fun and attention, there is a correction/confusion problem. If I have to correct a dog, fun will be the last thing on dog's mind. When done I will then rebuild my dog.


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## melgrj7 (Sep 21, 2007)

I have trouble with this with Lloyd. Its the main reason we haven't started to compete yet. He always moves his feet in a happy dance when the person comes to touch him. My trainer suggested I stand him up on pegs (pieces of 2X4 cut just so his feet fit on them). Then if he moves he will fall off them (only a couple inches, not enough he would get hurt). I'm trying other things first but may end up trying this.


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## RedyreRottweilers (Dec 17, 2006)

This method works. We use it frequently to teach puppies to hold their stacked position for the show ring.










My husband made the set you see here. You can also use bricks. These have magnets on the bottom and are set on a metal oil changing pan.


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