# Felix Stacking Progress - Tips Appreciated :)



## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

Felix is now just about 5 months old. I've been teaching how to stack for a few months now and we've made some good progress  I'm still working on getting him to place his feet himself, but he lets me place them no problem. My biggest problem now is my own complete lack of experience in regards to whether I'm actually stacking him properly. Our breeder says he looks good, but there is a bit of a language barrier so sometimes I have a hard time explaining my questions to them. The first pictures are from when we started stacking him and the last ones are from today. 

Edit: I'm sorry about the weird angle and image. When I'm here by myself, I record myself on my phone so I can see what I'm doing and then I take screenshots from the video.


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## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Bumping up


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

I think he's stacking well. If you put a treat in front, you'll see him lean forward a little more, giving him more shoulder lay back. He looks like he has the hang of stacking. How is he gating now?


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

Alaska7133 said:


> I think he's stacking well. If you put a treat in front, you'll see him lean forward a little more, giving him more shoulder lay back. He looks like he has the hang of stacking. How is he gating now?


Thank you! We're having a time with him sitting back on his haunches and not wanting to lean forward, so we're working on that, but he's great at standing still. Gaiting is a work in progress, we're working on breaking him out of the habit of pacing, but when he trots, it does look lovely. He can go around the ring now without jumping like a fool during handling class. 

His breeder said we need to move his front leg further underneath him and move his hind feet out just a bit to really show off the shoulder he has, but he is definitely a work in progress lol.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

If it helps - these are kinda training videos showing what I do to train stacks to my dogs?

It's 3 videos.

Video 1






^ This shows the handstacking. Even if your dog has a good natural stack, you still want to go through the motions of training him to let you place feet + keep the feet in place.

I don't know if you can see in the video, but when I place the rear feet, I stick a finger or two down so I know without looking that I'm placing the foot with the hocks straight up and down. Then the front feet, I pull my dog opposite of the foot I'm placing. Best I can explain is I'm opening him up in front and because I'm grasping at the elbow and holding a finger down, I know by the feel of the elbow that I'm placing the leg straight without looking.

This video does contain one small mistake - if you see, I didn't put the inside rear foot back far enough. I chose to go with the video anyway just to show you that's a reason why I still need to place feet and glance up at the mirror before rewarding him! 

Now even with handstacking, I still had him stacked in a decent amount of time for a puppy - 14 seconds.

Video 2






^^ If you train like in video 1 enough, your dog will be able to set up in a free stack quickly + you will have very minimal adjustments to do, if any. In this case, I just had to fix the rear on the judge's side. Took me 12 seconds.

Video 3






^^^ This is my Jovi (18 month old) so you can see what my goal is while training Glee. Took me 5 seconds to get a decent free stack. I will handstack Jovi as needed, but he is trained to set his feet when I tug back on his collar - and then I just adjust the feet as needed.


^^^^^ One other note is that one of the things I always do when training stacks is training with a show lead on and training my dogs to bait. In the show ring, I will either have bait just a little in front of the muzzle and I'll be working it to get then to shift forward (instead of slouching). In training though, I always toss the treat and release the dogs to go get it. In the show ring, I won't throw treats - but I want them thinking that might happen!


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Pacing is hard. Do you need to speed up or slow down to get him to stop pacing? I’ve never had a dog that paced, but I have a friend with a pacer, no matter the speed. 
I can see moving the front legs under his shoulders and moving his back legs farther out. He’s still growing and will be wonky for a while. 
I hope you are having fun showing him. Now the grooming part, are you getting any help? My dogs don’t have that much fur, so I haven’t had a boy like yours with a nice coat.


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

Megora said:


> If it helps - these are kinda training videos showing what I do to train stacks to my dogs?
> 
> It's 3 videos.
> 
> ...


Thank you so much!! I was actually having a really hard time figuring out where to put my hands on his back legs to move them, I appreciate these so much!! I wish I wasn't so inexperienced and knew what I was supposed to be looking for but this is so helpful. I can't wait for the mirror to come in


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

Alaska7133 said:


> Pacing is hard. Do you need to speed up or slow down to get him to stop pacing? I’ve never had a dog that paced, but I have a friend with a pacer, no matter the speed.
> I can see moving the front legs under his shoulders and moving his back legs farther out. He’s still growing and will be wonky for a while.
> I hope you are having fun showing him. Now the grooming part, are you getting any help? My dogs don’t have that much fur, so I haven’t had a boy like yours with a nice coat.


For now, we're asking him to gait while we're turning and that seems to work  For now, he's great with baths and the blow dryer, but otherwise we have no idea what else we're doing.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

There are some nice videos on YouTube for showing dogs. Here’s Eric Salas: Official Eric Salas Training Channel
Will Alexander, who has won Westminster with a beagle recently, Will Alexander

For grooming, Morningsage Goldens has some great tutorials. Scroll down the page and look for a gray box. That’s a drop down box. Look for the grooming pages, there are several. Morningsage Goldens Home These same tutorials are also On the GRCA website


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

Alaska7133 said:


> There are some nice videos on YouTube for showing dogs. Here’s Eric Salas: Official Eric Salas Training Channel
> Will Alexander, who has won Westminster with a beagle recently, Will Alexander
> 
> For grooming, Morningsage Goldens has some great tutorials. Scroll down the page and look for a gray box. That’s a drop down box. Look for the grooming pages, there are several. Morningsage Goldens Home These same tutorials are also On the GRCA website


I'm so grateful to this forum, thank you SO much!! I can't wait to see how he'll look properly groomed and am excited to learn myself. Thank you so much for the videos  I can't wait to update with some improved stacking and gaiting results.


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## Alaska7133 (May 26, 2011)

Keep showing us how it’s going!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Go Gators!
Where do you live?


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## Tagrenine (Aug 20, 2019)

K9-Design said:


> Go Gators!
> Where do you live?


I currently live in South Florida, but I got my Bachelors at UF


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