Buddy's Start Line Behavior

Buddy's start line is a total mess.

He has consistently broken stays for his entire agility career; I had no idea what I was doing with him at first and supported bad habits. I have recently introduced a release behavior in training and at trials (a down before he can be released), but with that came a startling change in how he acts at the start line.

He will heel to the line under control, which was previously difficult to do. I generally loop the leash around his neck so I can simply drop it, removing the 'click' of a leash snapping off or the motion of a slip-lead coming over his head. He is tense and practically vibrating with anticipation- and once I drop the lead, anything goes.

He will generally wait a few seconds before snapping out of his sit-stay, though sometimes it happens as soon as the leash leaves my hand. He will not completely disregard me and go to the jump- he will run forward, slam on the breaks, and then back up into heel position. His issue is that he will not 'stay' in one place- he clings to heel position and barks hysterically at me, trying to drop into his release behavior and be sent to the jump.

You can see me trying different behaviors to 'snap him out' of the heel position clinging (a spin, a 'get around'), but, clearly, with limited success. I am not entirely sure what snaps him out of his hysteria and makes him stay. Because eventually, yes, it does happen. You can see it at the end of the video. He simply stops barking and stays.

WHICH WOULD BE CONVENIENT IF IT HAD HAPPENED AT 00:01 INSTEAD OF 00:15.

But anyway.

This is an older video, taken the first run of a NADAC trial. Here I'm being as calm as I can be, trying to outwait him. I didn't want to fight fire with fire, and from past experiences I've found that he gets even more inflamed if I shout, but I can't find a method that seems to work consistently. We can't seem to work through it.

Any suggestions? Analysis? In a perfect world, the behavior chain would look like:
-heel in
-sit
-drop leash
-stay command
-lead out
-down command
-praise for down
-release

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• training
• help
• border
• collie
• agility