Teaching a Solid “Stay”
Hank, a gorgeous merle Australian Shepherd poses for the camera while in a “down - stay” about 12 feet away at Acadia National Park in the spring of 2023.
Almost every client I meet with would like to teach their dog to “stay”. Indeed, it is a very useful (to us) behavior for a dog to know. Almost always, however, I find myself witnessing the same issues over and over again when I ask my clients to show me what they’ve been doing so far while working on this behavior, so I thought I’d write about it. I’ve been here myself, so this is as much about my handling techniques in the past! Here’s how it usually goes:
The handler asks the dog to sit or lie down, then raises a palm up to indicate the dog to stay, they say “stay” a few times while slowly backing up a few feet. The dog pops up and starts to follow them.
Very frustrating, right? This is how I had seen people teaching stay when I was a kid. It’s not very effective. Here’s what I recommend to get a very solid stay:
First, practice rewarding your dog for simply sitting or laying down for an extended period of time. By extended, I mean several seconds, not minutes or hours. Right after we ask our dogs to sit and we give them a treat, they usually pop up immediately. It’s important to first show them that the treats will keep coming if they keep sitting!
Once your pup is able to sit still for a few seconds, start to teach them a word that means they can get up. Common words that you might hear trainers use are “release”, “free” or “break”. After feeding them 3-5 treats for sitting still, say your word, then reach for a treat and toss it behind your dog so that they get up. Repeat this several times. I want them to start to wait to hear the word before they get up!
Once you have excelled at step 2, you may move onto adding the word “stay”. Note that at this time, you are NOT backing away from your dog. The “stay” behavior is really not about us backing away, but rather about the dog not moving. So don’t worry about moving away from your dog! Ask your dog to sit or lie down, say “stay” once, then give your dog several treats for staying, one after the other. Then, say your special word from step 2, and toss a treat behind them so they get up! Congratulations, your dog just completed a stay without breaking it!
Adding duration, distractions and distance will come later!
There. These are some of the keys to teaching a solid stay - don’t worry about moving away from your dog, focus on rewarding the stay itself, and always have a word to let your dog know they can get up! Happy training :)