Teaching your Dog the Basic Command – Stay

The stay technique is another of the basic tricks you can train your dog to do. It’s a great technique to teach your dog as it promotes self-control, discipline, concentration and can also prevent your dog from any potential harm. By teaching your dog to stay is encourage him not to move through the stages too fast. Imagine if your dog ran across a road or there was some broken glass on the floor, the stay command would definitely help your dog here.

Unlike most commands, a marker (clicker) is not given when your dog stays still. Because staying is essentially asking your dog to do nothing at all, and to take it promptly. It is an imprecise behavior that relies on duration, not an action. The marker (clicker) signals the end of the behavior, only then your dog is rewarded.

Before attempting the stay command, you need to teach your dog the sit command. If your dog knows how to sit, you will have no problem teaching it to stay.

Duration-Stay Technique

1. Find a quiet place inside or outside the home where you and your dog can relax and concentrate on the task.
2. Have your dog sit in front of you.
3. Place your palm near his face for emphasis and give the stay command. This looks exactly the same as if you were signaling for another person to “stop” – but instead you say the word “stay”.
4. At this stage your dog hasn’t learnt anything to do with the stay technique, but once you give the signal, wait and see how long he stays in its current position. Once the dog has stayed in his current position for a few seconds, click and reward him.
5. Repeat step 4 about 5 times but wait longer each time before praising your dog. You may want to start with two seconds and gradually increase up until ten seconds.
6. If your dog moves, don’t praise your dog or give him a treat. After a few attempts, your dog should start to realize that while it’s not moving that he gets a treat.

Distance-Stay Technique

1. Once your dog is able to stay in one position (with longer duration) reliably, only then you’d introduce this technique. Do NOT introduce the duration-stay and distance-stay techniques at one go.
2. Do step 4 without clicking, praising or giving your dog a treat. Take a step back. If your dog attempts to move to follow you, step back to your original position and reinforce it immediately.
3. If your dog remains sitting reliably after your first step backward, click and go back to him to reward.
4. Slowly lengthen the distance by increase a couple steps backward at a time. Always go back to your dog and reward once he mastered each distance between you. Do not praise him in a distance as this will only encourage him to move towards you.

Advance Tips

• If your dog continues to stay, instead of going up to the dog and praising it, release the dog by calling its name (or using the release command – okay) and when it comes to you then click and reward him.
• Work on different positions around you dog yet remain close to him. Move in front, to either side, and then behind of him. Vary the amount of time you wait to release and praise him.
• As your dog becomes more competent, add mild distractions such as tilting your head or yawning, gradually working to greater ones like rolling a ball past your dog.
• After mastering these different approaches, both you and your dog are ready to work on different location like parks. Do keep your dog on leash for his safety when practicing in public areas.

Special Notes: Don’t use the stay command more than 5 times per day. For training to be effective it needs to be fun for your dog – don’t abuse your power.

Our training motto is to be a KISSER. Keep It Short and Simple with Easy Repetitions.