How to Teach Your Dog Stay

Teaching your dog to stay sometimes can be extremely difficult if you’re using the wrong game plan. Almost every request we receive from potential clients include the stay command. Many of them explain to our trainers that there dog will not stay for them. Once we delve a bit into how they are teaching their dog to stay we exhibit the common denominator – they are using the wrong type of reward, they are rewarding from the wroong position and the quality and quantity of the rewards are way off. How to teach your dog to stay does not have to be difficult, it can even be fun!

Let’s begin with the number reason why you may be having difficulties in teaching your dog to stay. Where are you rewarding your dog? In other words are you placing your dog in a stay position while slowly moving backwards and then calling him to come and rewarding him when he comes to you? If you are, you’re not alone!

This is very counter-productive for the dog. When you give it some thought, you’re actually training two (2) commands at once – the COME and the STAY commands. Does anyone know the prroblem yet? The dog anticiaptes where he or she will recieve the reward. So, while he is in the STAY position, every step you take backwards begins to activate his prey drive and desire to get the reward. You are not only inadvertantly training the stay and come command, but you’re also training two (2) maybe three of the elements required when teaching your dog to stay. These elements are: Duration, Distance and Distractions.

Our method of how to teach your dog to stay should begin with position that they find to favor such as the SIT or DOWN position. Do NOT step backwards, we need to build the duration first. You may use a clicker when training the stay command with your dog. Here are the correct steps:

1. Have your dog sit or down;
2. While standing in directly in front of them;
3. Click the clicker and treat while gently & calmly repeating – “Good Stay.”;
4. Do this a number of times from NO distance at all.

Your next step on how to teach your dog to stay is to add the element of “duration” into the game plan. This is very easy to do. We simply we do steps one, two and half of three (3) above. Half of step (3)? yes, this time when the dog is SITTING or DOWNING you will click the clicker and delay the reward for approximately 1/4 of second. This will help the dog to remain becasue he knows the clicker signals you presenting the food.