# Question for Agility Peeps



## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

I had this issue with my high-drive golden. I hate to say this, but it took us four years to get a reliable start line stay in the ring. In the early days I didn't even try: she got very anxious and would plough through obstacles to get to me. I felt it was better to forget the whole thing and just run with her. It worked: agility became a lot more fun for both of us.

As for the problem of speed, this was a dog who consistently ran faster than the border collies. I'm disabled with arthritis and can't run much anyway, and we developed a whole slew of strategies to get around the no-stay situation. By necessity I handled from a distance and also taught her rock-solid verbal commands that worked at a distance. I managed to get some lateral distance at start lines, and this worked on occasion. Sometimes I could start in front of the first obstacle and send her back to do it while I got ahead of her (this only worked with electronic timing: some judges would not let us do this if there was a physical "start line" and manual timing).

An important thing for the handler to learn is to avoid becoming stressed or frantic, because the dog feels this. If you keep things fun and upbeat, even when it's frustrating, the dog responds much better.

It was this lack of stress that allowed us, in the end, to get our start-line stay. One day, we were entered in a jumper run at the end of the last day of a three-day trial. The course started with a straight line of three jumps followed by an "around". I thought: let's try this. So I told my dog to stay and simply walked away for a three-obstacle lead out. She didn't budge until I told her to, and ever afterwards would stay at the start if I asked her to. I have no idea why she decided to start doing this. Someone told me it was my attitude that had made the difference: I walked away as though I expected her to stay, and she did. This may have been a factor. But I think the other thing that helped was that we'd completely eliminated all the stress that used to be associated with the start of our runs.

Another thing that may have helped was that I started taking her leash off before entering the ring. When we entered, she walked to heel without a leash. Just the fact of eliminating those few seconds of fiddling to get the leash off seemed to help diminish her pre-run stress.

I should add that the lack of a start-line stay never prevented us from competing successfully. Of our three provincial championship titles, two were earned without any kind of start line stay, and the third was earned just two months after I underwent major knee surgery and was barely able to walk. When my dog died earlier this year, age 8, of cardiac hemangiosarcoma, she was the reigning Canadian champion in her division, even with a handler who couldn't run much. In 2014 she also won the speedstakes challenge at the national championships (see photo in my signature). My handling style was unorthodox by necessity, but it worked for us. With any issue in agility, it's sometimes a question of thinking outside the box.

My advice: forget the start line stay for now, get rid of the stress, make every run fun for the dog, teach some good, solid verbal commands and work on distance handling. Keep training the stay in practice sessions, and once the stress has gone out of the runs, try it again.

Good luck! I had such a blast running a super fast dog in agility, even when things didn't quite go according to plan. I'd give anything to have her back again.


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Sorry for your loss. I agree it's fun running a speed demon even if things don't go right. 

I do think in part it's my husbands "demeanor". I think he doesn't just "walk away". I have run her, she stays for me. However she knows I will "kick her butt" (I never have probably never will but she knows I would) so she listens to me. She also doesn't bark as much at the start line with me. It's why "I" can do obedience with her. She is "daddy's little girl" and she has my husband right where she wants him. I always think if he would just get firm with her she would stop the nonsense. But I'm the wife.....he won't listen to me. 

Unfortunately around here you have to go in the ring while the dog ahead is finishing so you can't go in off leash. That could get you NQ'd real fast. I've heard that idea but until the dog ahead is "under control" your dog should be leashed.


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