Heeling under gunfire

Heeling under the gun is normally less demanding for the dog than holding a down stay while shots are fired, because during the heel the animal is preoccupied with the work and close to its handler. Therefore, since we have already finished work on the dog’s down stay under the gun, we should expect no problems with heeling under gunfire.

^{The running stand out of motion. The dog must come to a clean stand from a fast trotting pace.}

^{The down out of motion is the easiest of the three exercises out of motion to teach. However, great care must be taken to ensure that it does not interfere with the sit and the stand out of motion.}

Obedience: The Exercises out of Motion

After The heeling pattern in a Schutzhund III obedience routine comes a series of four closely related exercises that account for thirty of the 100 points available in the obedience phase. We call them the exercises out of motion, and they consist of (1) the walking sit, (2) the running down, (3) the walking stand and (4) the running stand.

We use the phrase exercises out of motion to refer not only to the skills listed above, but also to the recalls and finishes that the dog must perform after the down and the running stand.

GOAL 1: The dog will stand out of motion instantly on command.

Schutzhund obedience requires a number of difficult skills, and one of them is the stand out of motion. The average dog has little trouble learning the sit and down out of motion. But with the introduction of the stand things can go mysteriously wrong. The animal may simply seem unable to comprehend the stand, or may catch on to the stand just fine but in the process lose either the sit or the down–or both!

It sometimes appears as though the dog can only handle two possibilities in the exercises out of motion. Because it is called upon to react so quickly and decisively when it hears a command–and has so little time to decide which command it is that it is hearing–the stand often becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

To prevent this problem, we introduced the stand itself very early on in training, and for the same reason we will now begin teaching the stand out of motion before introducing either the sit or the down out of motion.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Standing from a walk

2. Standing from a run