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Originally Posted by poohbearsmom I recently attended a show here in the South, and the 6-9mos male class was in the ring. A friend of mine had her pup in (no ring experience) the ring... the pup was fidgeting when my friend touched him, so she opted to free stack.... The judge demanded that she hand stack her pup. She said no, the pup was fighting it... the judge then gave her a lecture on the importance of training, behavior in the ring, blah blah blah (this is a youth dog, remember).... judge let my friend move the dog to calm him down, then told her to hand stack him again.... by this time, pup was getting frazzled, and would not show his teeth... pup excused from ring.
Not good behavior on the judge's behalf, IMHO, but things like this do happen. |
Yes, it was bad behaviour, but on the other hand, I can see where the judge was coming from. If the pup's 'self stack' wasn't really stacked, then how can they properly judge the pup's conformatin and compare it to the others?
So yes, everyone hopes to free stack - but if it isn't a true, square free stack, you'll have to fix it.
So yes, you have to hand stack if they won't free stack properly. And if they won't free stack, yes, you have to train them to submit to hand stacking - which would be where the judges' comments came in. But they should have known better than to stress the puppy - they just should have judged him accordingly and moved on.
There's a product called Happy Legs:
http://www.happylegs.com
This basically gets the pup or dog up on little stilts in the proper stack position. Since they are up in the air, there's a consequence to them stepping off. Feed them treats, say "Good show!" or whatever word you want. if they step off, correct them, put them back on, "Good Show!" again - just like any other training, they'll get the point.
Standing them on the stilts also helps them build those muscles so that the stack is a comfortable stance for them. They'll eventually go into it naturally.
It's a tool you might want to look into if you want to train the free stack at home. :)