Teaching them "stay"

[SnoopyDog]

I have a 13 week old puppy. She's a smart girl, she's already getting the hang of "sit" but she'll usually only do it if she knows you have a treat, lol. She's grasping the whole "go potty outside!" thing, too.

Anyway. I think teaching them to "stay" is *so* important, but my question is...how? I don't really know how to go about teaching her this command. She seems to stay still a lot, lol, I don't know when I'm supposed to give the command and praise her...?

Thanks in advance!

[IceyBlueSibes]

Teaching them stay takes a bit of time. Training times should only be done for short periods of time through out the day. Puppies have a very short attention span at times.

Start out with doing stay for very short periods. When she's sitting, or laying down, tell her stay... wait a few seconds and if she does not move or break the sit/lay, praise her like crazy. Repeat this and increase the time little by little. Once you have her staying for a good while, try moving away from her, but only short distances. Only increase the distance when you know she understands not to move. You can then add distractions, such as throwing a toy off to the side. If she does not move, treat and praise.

That is how I taught my dogs stay. Someone may be able to go a little more in depth with it though.

Keep in mind that this will not happen over night. Teaching this command will take a lot of time and patience. I just adopted a young puppy too. He's 9 weeks old today. Already knows "sit" and "High 5!". Still a bit shaky on "Lay".

Good luck with your puppy. I hope that doesn't sound too confusing. LOL

[SnoopyDog]

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I definitely expect it to take some time, but that's okay, I just want to get started on it a bit. Once we get the "basic" stuff out of the way, we can start the fun ones.

Hi 5--that's a cool one! My friend's dog knew it, I thought it was so cute, I swore sometime in my life I would teach a dog that lol!

VERY cute puppy you have there, by the way!

[IceyBlueSibes]

Glad I could be of some help.

Thank you We adopted him last week. He's been such a doll. He just has a cold, that turns out to be very contagious among other dogs so they're all on antibiotics!

It's always cool to teach them the "fun" tricks. Then you get to show off in front of other doggies Hehe.

[Barrett]

I think another important tip is:
When your pup does break the stay, step forward and say Ah-Ah and place your pup in the same spot again. Then ask for the stay again, wait 5 seconds and then treat and praise.
I started out having my pups stay for 5 seconds and me 5 feet away. I increased it by 5 seconds and 1 step back over a two week period until I could stand all the way across the room for over 30 seconds. It took about a month to get to a minute...one minute can seem like an eternity! LOL!! Now my dogs can stay for 10 minutes with me out of the room. Lucy usually breaks the stay by 10 minutes...Bailey will stay until I release her.

For the stay command, walk back to your pup before releasing the command. For the wait command, you can release by verbal command or hand signal.

[Carrie]

The way I look at it is that stay has 3 components to it and each should be taught seperately. There's duration, distance (where you stand from your dog) and there will be distractions.

I start out without using a command. Just show with your hand what you mean. The pup doesn't understand English anyhow and it's a lot of information being jammed into her head at this point. You can add the verbal command a little later, once she's received enough reinforcements to start looking like she's getting the idea.

So, first I take the duration part. Start with 1 second and stand right in front of your dog. Reward with a treat. Starting with a very short duration is more likely to make the dog succeed and you want to prevent the dog from breaking the stay. The more successes the dog has, the more likely the behavior will be repeated and learned. Then increase it to 2 or 3 seconds. The next time start from the beginning and work up to 5 or 6 seconds. If the dog breaks the say at 6 seconds, it means you've gone too far too soon. Go back to where the dog was successful and gradually work up again. Continue standing right in front of the dog.

Once the dog is staying calmly for a longer time and is really getting quite solid on it, you can start with the distance part. But go back for now with short duration. Put your dog in a sit, stay and step back a foot and immediately return to your dog. Don't pause at all. Praise/treat immediately. Do it again, only step away 2 feet and immediately return, then 3 feet etc. (Always return to your dog. Don't call your dog to come from a stay for a very long time, until she's extremely solid on the stay. It could be months and months down the road.) Gradually increase your distance by walking backwards and coming right back. Again, if the dog breaks the stay, it means you've gone too far away and she's not ready for that. Go back to the distance where she was able to hold the stay and again work up. Don't forget to reward/praise your dog quickly when you return to her. The more reinforcement she gets, the better she'll learn.

Then when she is quite solid on the distance, you can start adding a little pause when you're standing away a couple of feet. Gradually add distance and duration together. Praise, treat a lot for success.

Once she's really getting onto the whole thing, go from no distractions to adding some little distraction...maybe a family member walking across the yard or living room. Move your hand to scratch your head to test out if she recognizes your hand signal to come from other movements. Walk from side to side while you're standing away and she's staying. Squat down to test her out. Squatting is often used to get a dog to come. But since you squat down, but have not told her to come, see if she can hold the stay. If not, go replace her and show her what you mean again. No punishment. Just keep practicing stuff like that.

Sometimes if the stay is too long, the dog will lie down. Go show her that you mean sit, not down. Just replace her in the sit. If she lies down, she's probably tired or bored and figures she may as well lie down. So shorten up the duration again so she can succeed at sitting while staying. And gradually work up again. Once she's getting that very strong, you can go onto the down/stay. It's hard for a dog to do a long sit/stay, but easier to do a long down/stay.

Later, you can move up to a long down stay where you hide behind a tree or something and pop out very often to give a treat while she continues to stay and back out of sight you go. Gradually you increase the time between treats. It's very cool to have your dog stay while you go out of sight. I do this with my dog down at the little corner store here by my house where it's very safe. He waits outside while I go in the store. I started by just going around the corner from the door and right away popping out to reward him and increasing the time I was in there. People walk right past him to go inside and he remains lying down. He's so cute. But he's almost 3 years old! LOL.

So, let us know how it all goes.

[SnoopyDog]

Wow, thanks! I definitely think I can do that, lol. I'll try it and see how it goes...