If you are interested in obedience and you don’t live under a rock you have without a doubt heard about the proposed changes to the Open class in obedience. There have been a lot of comments, both positive and negative, on social media. This is to be expected and proves the point that obedience is far from dead.
I have been embedded in this process, since I am on the obedience council as a junior rep in my zone. I don’t get to vote, but I do get to speak for those in my zone that have passed on their feelings about the matters surrounding obedience.
I am required to keep what happens in meetings confidential, but now that the cat (or dog) is out of the bag, I would like to say a few things — and since this is MY blog, this seems like the perfect place.
I am in favour of getting rid of the out of sight stays, for many reasons. First of all, there are issues from a training perspective if you run into a problem with your dog breaking the stay. (I am not sure who said it, but there is a saying: “There are dogs who break their stays, and there are dogs who are thinking about breaking their stays.”). Most notably, a dog will break their sit stay and lie down. When this happens – well, at a trial, there is no consequence. You return, set the dog up and ask them to lie down again – bonus nap time for the dog, and a very confusing message, because no matter how positive a trainer you are, you will feel some kind of emotion about your dog breaking the stay and your dog will recognize that something is going on with you. As a dog trainer who always tries to keep the message very clear – “Love that!” or “not so much” — the OSS are very frustrating for me as a competitor and a teacher of obedience. (I would like to add that my dogs, past and present, don’t have stay problems; they might break on occasion, but it is pretty infrequent.)
Secondly, in today’s world the threat of what can happen between dogs in an out of sight situation is a very real liability issue. The host club, the CKC and the judge could be hit with a lawsuit if there is an incident. To purposely set up a situation to see if the dogs will ignore each other and behave while their partners are out of sight just seems negligent to me.
There are many other reasons, but I want to move on to what has been proposed. The obedience council has put forward the following ideas to replace the out of sight stays in the Open class (both A and B):
1) The Sit Stay – It will be in sight and continues to be 3 minutes. At the 1 minute mark the handlers walk around their dogs and back to the other side of the ring. This is done without any further command or signals to the dog to remain in a sitting position.
2) The Change of Position exercise – The handler shall stand in a position indicated by the judge 1.8m (6’) behind a clearly marked line with his dog sitting at heel. On the judge’s orders, he will give the first position command and leave the dog. The handler shall then walk straight forward about 6.1m (20’) beyond the line, and turn to face his dog, standing with his arms hanging naturally at his sides, after which, from a discreet distance, the judge will signal the orders for the next five positions sequentially, pausing briefly after each position is assumed by the dog. Finally the judge will order the handler to return to his dog, walking around behind it to the heel position. The dog should not move from the last position until the judge has said “Exercise finished.”
The sequences could be any of the following
a – down, sit, stand, sit, down, stand
b – stand, down, sit, down, stand, sit
c – down, stand, sit, stand, sit, down
d – stand, sit ,down, sit, down, stand
e – down, sit, down, stand, sit, down
f – stand, down, stand, sit, down, sit
I believe that stays are useful and are important. When we (as a committee) started working on this I asked myself if I would continue to teach stays if they were removed from obedience (I only teach competitive obedience classes) and my answer was yes! Stays are used all the time in obedience. Regardless of the command (stay or wait) the dog should remain in position until released. This happens on recalls, retrieves and jumping. We need the basic skill of stays! So I am happy that the stays have remained.
I think the position changes are interesting; my problem with them is that I don’t think this is a stepping stone to Utility. I think this is harder than Utility. I would have loved to have seen 3 position changes instead of 6, and allowing the handler to use verbal and/or signal cues. However having said that, the Change of Position exercise is doable for sure.
Okay now I have gotten that off my chest! Whew, I feel much better
No matter what changes came forward not everyone would have been happy — there is no perfect solution. We will know for sure what happens after the Board meeting this weekend. I am planning to attend and sit in the gallery.
I do feel very strongly that there needed to be change. I don’t think the sport would have survived another 3 years with out of sight stays. Is the change perfect? No way, but it is change, so we should embrace it and begin the conversation of how to move forward with our sport.
To all those people that said they would NEVER show in obedience again until the OSS were removed, here is your chance to show your support for the removal of this exercise. Better yet, when you send your entry in, put a note on it saying you are returning to obedience because of the removal of the out of sight stays. Ask the club to forward your note with the catalog to the head office of the CKC. The club will be happy to know that they received your entry, which they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten, and the CKC will also receive this information.
Obedience isn’t perfect. It is sort of ironic that we strive for our dogs to be perfect in an imperfect sport, but that’s life I guess.
Happy Training!