Start line, smart line!

OK, I need a start line behavior. I remember someone, some clinician? Some instructor? Some author? Someone saying to me once that start lines should be treated like any other "obstacle". Trained as if it is obstacle #1. Actually, I do believe that person was saying "start line stays" should be treated that way. Well........I don't DO start line stays. I did, once before. For years with the MinPins. They are obedience dogs, they stay. I can't even remember the day I made the decision to stop doing start line stays. It was years into our competition. Colby doesn't mind start line stays and does fine! She's not that much of a worried dog. Stays don't bother her much. She'll stay, she's a good little girlie.

Roscoe? Stays can totally bum him out. Self control work is very hard for him and leaving him in a stay sometimes breaks his trust in me. I can see it in him. He looks at me like I have betrayed him. Seriously, he can bore those eyes into my head like a drill sometimes. Like Cin's pup Zep. Ever look directly into HIS eyes? He will bore a hole and suck out your brain cells!!! Roscoe, he just tells me I suck and leaving him in a stay is a BUMMER MAN!!

The day I quit start line stays with Roscoe I had a DOG out there. I had a partner. He breathed such a sigh of relief!! It was THAT clear. We never did another. I have struggled a lot with simply running, however. Instructors sometimes don't even know how to deal with running starts. I have been to seminars where they want me to "just try" the start line stay. I have to argue and explain that what I need MOST is help dealing with a running start line, thank you very much!! Amazing how hard that is for some.

OK, so that's the trouble. Most instructors do start line stays. It's well practiced, they train it, they do it, it's the deal, Muffin Heads. Start line stays! Running starts, not so much. And I need help with it. I need help dealing with the mental preparation. I am going to try to train the bouncy game better with Roscoe. He likes it, he's well trained to do it, I think I can make it a regular occurance at start lines.

Spur - I need to figure something out. Stays are uncomfortable for him, too. And "uncomfortable" isn't the right feeling to start an agility course with, now, is it?? Right now I am doing a rev up sort of game that I can see he is figuring out. I say "Ready, ready, ready??? GO!" and he does get ready and I see him looking at which obstacle he needs to be ready for. However, it isn't fluent, it isn't well practiced and I haven't done it that well at a trial, yet. I tried the bouncy game with him last weekend, but that also isn't all that well trained. He does it, but it isn't fluent like with Roscoe. I do have a new trick I just trained that he loves and he DID at the trial last weekend just outside the gate. A jump off my leg to a little flip like move. However, I am not sure that's the best start line performance? It means I have to perform something and that may make me a little behind on my take off? I don't know. I may try it. I need impulsion from him at the start, so that's my next project.

I have done TONS of rev up games with toys. Holding his collar until he is straining and releasing with impulsion to a toy. But, that's not all that realistic for us at a trial. I won't be taking a toy into the ring. I need a behavior I can take into the ring and use to get impulsion at the start.