For those of you who haven't done any stop motion animation, a tie down is something that anchors the puppet to the set and, besides keeping it from falling over, allows you to move the puppet and keep some parts (usually feet) anchored.

Similarly, a gauge marks a point in space that, after positioning it next to a finger, allows you to move the hand and finger back to that point in space after moving the puppet in some manner. In the CG world I expect one could create a tiedown in mid-air, keeping the finger from moving in the first place so you don't have to move it back.

I'm sure Maya does this, but searching on "tie down" and "tiedown" in the Maya help doesn't turn up any results. I think I just need to know the right terminology...