Yes, thank you. Apart from this part

I'm also not sure how I can get him to lower his tail so I can click.

Does he NEVER lower his tail at all?

I find the way to do this is to get a dog to really concentrate on something, like if he is ball or food fixated, the mouth normally closes and the tail lowers...........

When he's stacked his tail will lower in the right stack position unless the judge comes over or when he thinks we're about to move. If its up for some reason I just push it down (gently) and say 'tail' (told you I was crap at training!) in the hope he'd get the idea.

But then when he moves it goes over his back and flaps wildly left to right, totally ruining his outline etc. So I've been trying to think how to get him to lower it while moving, without any negatives. He really enjoys showing which is very important for me, but if I can sort this out I'd be very happy!

Ok so if you know what triggers him to put it up, and the dog is clicker trained, you can recreate this situation by getting someone to come over, as soon as the muscles move to indicate the tail is coming up, take away the treat, if it stays down click and treat.

You may have to start when someone is far away so you need to make sure the other person knows EXACTLY what you want and approaches SLOWLY.

This will take time for the dog to figure out what is triggering the click and treat.

Ahhh right, I'm with you. Trigger a behaviour which will then allow me to shape another.

When you say take away the treat do you mean get the person to back off so that his tail drops again?

Thank you for being patient

No, if you just remove the person, the tail will drop, but the dog is not getting reinforced for dropping his tail.

Do you bait your dog when you stack him?

If so, remove bait, and then re present it; I would start with clicking and treating the stack with the tail down, so he gets conditioned that this position gets reinforced.

As soon as the tail moves, withold the click and treat........

Can you not get to a good clicker trainer near you?

I'm with you. I don't bait him in the ring because everything else goes out the window if he thinks I've got a treat...lol.

Not sure of any 'decent' trainers near me. I'm skint anyway. I just need to know how to apply stuff, that's all.

I would have thought that the cost of entering a Championship Show would be a good motive for saving money for training so that you did not waste entry money?

Sometimes a couple of sessions with a skilled trainer is all you need......................

Most successful showers I know in most breeds use bait......

He's not entered in any shows at the moment. Mainly because I'm skint. And I wanted to try this tail training in the meantime.

There probably are people in affies who do bait, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. My dogs breeders don't and after seeing Talon's exploits when I tried it last, they advised I didn't either.

If I knew of a decent trainer who would be willing to teach us for a few sessions without charging £200 for a 'consultation' then I'd be all for it!

If he carries his tail too high, then he is bound to do it at some point in the ring, especially with other males about. In affies I have heard them referred to as "teapot handles" they shouldnt be like that, why not just accept him for what he is.