Floofins & Co. Trainer, Michele Hatley, Shares The Secrets To A Successful “Stay”.
How many times have you heard dog owners say to their dogs, “SSSTTTAAAYYYYYY”? (as if the longer they draw out the word the more likely the dog is to wait). The truth is, if you start by building up the duration of this behavior slowly, you can eventually have a dog that will remain comfortably in a position for quite some time – with no need for long, drawn out words to make the behavior happen!
This behavior can be useful for having your dog wait in position for further instruction, for exiting out of the car or a room, and for canine sports such as agility or obedience. Since staying in position and being still can be a hard behavior to do (especially for young or active dogs) it is critical to build up the duration of the stay behavior slowly.
In the beginning, you really have to start with a dog staying in a spot for a matter of seconds. In order to make this behavior more reliable, further down the road you’ll want to practice with adding in distractions because that definitely makes the behavior a lot harder to do. In the video you can see my 4 dogs staying side by side – at any moment one dog could completely distract all the others.
Could your dog do this?
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