# Staying in a Stack



## neVar (Dec 25, 2009)

you need to get her looking for the bait- that's what keeps their attention- and teach her to follow the bait- this is also how you fix front legs etc in the free stack in teh ring. . . 

here's a good site that helped me a lot http://www.dragonflyllama.com/ DOGS/Writing/confstack.html


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## cbrand (Aug 9, 2009)

KalaMama said:


> I have gotten Kala to stand in the stack on the grooming table for several seconds except for her head. When I say stay her feet don't move but she looks around to see what is going on. She does better when we are in the ring with other dogs on Saturday classes and she does okay on the down/back "watch" but I want her to stand still on the groom table with her head straight forward. How can I tell her to keep her head straight?


Are you just hand stacking her or are you wanting to free bait her? When you hand stack, you hold the dog under the chin up at the neck. You don't hold the collar the way you do with some breedes.

Some people even grab the skin on the side of the mouth/neck/chin. This way you can control the head.


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## KalaMama (Nov 20, 2009)

cbrand said:


> Are you just hand stacking her or are you wanting to free bait her? When you hand stack, you hold the dog under the chin up at the neck. You don't hold the collar the way you do with some breedes.
> 
> Some people even grab the skin on the side of the mouth/neck/chin. This way you can control the head.


Well, I have been hand stacking mostly. I am just starting to try the free bait, but what I am really referring to is after I hand stack her and I want her to stay in that position with her head forward to back up and take a picture or just get a good look at her. She will keep her feet planted but always look around to find where I am. Everyone else has such good pictures of their stacked pooches but once I stack her and back up -her head moves. Just more practice is best I guess....


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## flyingduster (Sep 6, 2009)

lol, I can stack Paris on the table so she's standing well, and then generally I aim the camera, half-press the shutter button to focus, and then toss something over where I want her to look, and take the pic when she looks over to it! I praise her for looking over at what I threw, so she's always happy to watch whatever I toss over (a toy, a bit of fur, a comb.... haha, whatever is handy!) but I have never tried to teach her to keep her head still, away from me, in a stack for a pic. 

This is a good result of tossing something:









You really need to teach her to look at something specific in the direction you want her head to be, NOT to teach her to try and teach her to keep her head still (she's watching you cos that's what poodles DO! They watch and follow their owners!) You need to teach dogs what to DO, not what NOT to do; they cannot grasp the 'do not do' thing very well at all, so trying to teach her to 'do not move your head' works a whole lot better if you can teach her 'look at this spot until I say otherwise' which you can certainly do with clicker training just like you'd train a target (google it if you don't know about target training) but IMO tossing something works fine for me, cos I can't be bothered teaching her to look at one spot! haha.

In saying all that, I still get better stack photos outside with her in a free stack, cos she's good at staying, even in a stand, if I tell her to, so she'll stay in a nice stack but is generally happily sniffing the air etc so I can usually get a good full side on pic outside a lot easier than on the table inside.


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