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Product Information

The Happy Legs™ system from Paw Prints in Kennesaw, GA comes in a handsome handcrafted solid wood box that forms the stilts’ base. Each stilt offers a solid support that easily adjusts to fit your dog’s stance. Boxes and stilts come in several sizes to accommodate all dogs.

	Box Sizes Extra Large Open: 40” x 17” Large Open: 36” x 16” Medium-Large Open (New!): 30” x 13.5” Small Open: 28” x 11”
Stilt Sizes X-Large: 4” Square Large: 3” Square Medium-Large (New!): 3” Square Medium: 2.25” Square Small: 1.75” Square

Mr. and Mrs. Happy Legs

We were awarded the patent for Happy Legs Stand Stay Stilts in 1997 and what an amazing journey we've been on ever since. Every single stand stay device produced today was created as a result of our very own, original training device, Happy Legs. When they say "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", they are not wrong! While we're happy that we've been copied soooo many times, there is ONLY ONE HAPPY LEGS STAND STAY STILTS. We have 50 years of dog show experience as breeders, owners, handlers and judges. We've studied thousands of dogs and perfected our product to individual breeds, sizes and stacking options, including creating stilts that accommodate the GSD stack, different sized boxes and stilts to accommodate toy and giant breeds.

Happy Legs has been revolutionizing the way we train dogs for 24 years. From teaching the whoa in hunting to the stand for exam in obedience to the stand stay in conformation, we provide trainers, handlers and owners with the equipment to accomplish this all important task, and showing them it can be taught quickly, without frustration, in a matter of minutes! Happy Legs uniquely isolates each foot with a variety of stilts (sized to fit each dog) in order to PROPERLY teach the young and experienced dog alike, just what it means to hold EACH FOOT still, in a stacked position. Dogs of all ages and breeds learn through positive only reinforcement, while also creating muscle memory for what a comfortable stacked position should feel like.

To all of our thousands of HAPPY customers, we can't thank you enough. If you're new to our product, welcome! We love to help newcomers! Whether you're new to showing or just new to our product, we are here to help you and your dog be successful! Contact us at mrs.happylegs@mindspring.com and let us know how we can help!

Bars v Stilts

What is Stilt Training and How Does it Work?

When I invented the concept to teach dogs how to hold their feet still, it came with understanding how dogs learn. Dogs (and people for that matter) learn through positive and negative reinforcement, and positive and negative punishment, among others. In the case of operant conditioning, positive and negative refer to adding or subtracting something. All reinforcement (positive or negative) increases the likelihood of a behavior and all punishment (positive or negative), decreases the likelihood of a behavioral response. Consequences, individual foot placements, and exercising core muscles are all methods that were originally incorporated to teach a proper stand stay.

This article is meant, specifically, to address the “Stilt method” versus the “bar method” used to teach a stand stay. The bar method is where there are not individual stilts but instead one long wooden, or other material, “bar” that is fixed (does not move), of varying widths, that stretches across a box or a grooming table.

The stilt method, or any method that isolates all four feet, encourages independent learning and a balanced stack while teaching the dog the concept that individual feet DO matter. Teaching a dog to leave three feet still while you quietly manipulate just one foot is “gold” in the show ring. This is something that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve using a platform/bar method when dogs are allowed (even taught) to forge or wiggle with no consequence.

What has been discovered using the “bar method” is that it is actually creating dogs that “push off” that rigid platform. This causes dogs to learn to forge, putting weight over their front and pushing off their rear, when your objective is to create a balanced stand and stay, where the dog is properly balanced front to rear.

The muscle memory created using a training aid, is the muscle memory they’ll exhibit on the ground, in front of the judge. Since we’re dealing with muscle memory, this can be difficult to retrain. It’s extremely important to get it right the first time!

This is a natural stack on a dog that was taught using the “bar method” from a puppy. You can see how she overloads her front, making her look straight in the front.

In order for a dog to have a proper show stack or stand stay, they must be balanced from nose to tail. In the bar/platform method, they cannot learn the placement of each foot, or more importantly, that moving individual feet (fidgeting) is not correct. Teaching a dog any behavior takes clear and concise signals that the dog can understand with little effort from the trainer. The more the trainer has to manipulate the dog, the greater likelihood the desired end behavior will be lost.

When using any method to train a stand stay for the show ring, you should envision what you want the final picture to look like. Is it a handler* that is constantly manipulating the dog’s stacked position, holding the dog in position, pushing back on a forging dog, or replacing feet on a fidgeting dog? Or, is it a handler that’s barely noticeable, with a dog that stacks itself or when stacked, will stay confident and balanced?

This is a natural stance that was accomplished using the Happy Legs method. You can see he stand four square evenly balanced.

When we look at how we train for the latter, we want a dog who is operant, one that makes decisions for itself (the right ones) and is comfortable standing for sometimes minutes at a time while moving very little or not at all. Using a stilt method, the dog makes these decisions on its own and is always in control. There are minor consequences for fidgeting or forging (a stilt falls over) and the trainer/owner/handler is there to help the dog figure out what’s right, to be the good guy. From the beginning the handler plays a lesser role in showing off that beautiful stack, with less over handling and more confident presentation.

*(for this article we’ll use the word handler to mean anyone; owner, semi-professional, professional).

What is Stilt Training and How Does it Work?

Susan Catlin

3285 Kimberly Road, Kennesaw, GA 30144

Office

770-422-1625

mrs.happylegs@mindspring.com

HAPPY LEGS’ patent number is 5,983,835 and is stamped on every box!

ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

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Product Information

Box Sizes

Stilt Sizes

Mr. and Mrs. Happy Legs

Bars v Stilts

What is Stilt Training and How Does it Work?

What is Stilt Training and How Does it Work?