Teaching the stay is easy, but can be time consuming and takes lots of practice. First have your dog on a leash and put them in a sit. Your dog should be in a sit in front of you, say sit and feed, then continuously feed every couple of seconds for staying there. Once your dog is staying for a couple seconds, you can start increasing the time between treats. Once they are staying well even with more time between treats, step one is complete! Always say “okay” or whatever you use for a release word to let them know that they are done “staying”. We choose not to say “stay” because we expect them to stay in a sit until we tell them they’re done sitting, or stay in a down, etc. If you choose to say “stay” simply say,”sit” then “stay” then feed every few seconds like mentioned above.
Now you can start increasing the distance, or time. If you choose to increase the distance first, simple start by having them in a “stay” then take 1 step backwards, then go right back and feed, then repeat. If they’re good at that, you can take 2, then 3, etc. Once they’re good at that you can start increasing the time but staying with them. Once they are good at both time and distance, you can try taking a few steps away and increasing the duration from afar. This will take a lot of repetition and a lot of practice, but if you’re consistent, they’ll get it! Remember, if they ever break their stay, put them right back in the same spot, don’t feed and start over. If they break their stay more than once, you’re probably moving too fast and should go back a few steps to make it easier for them.
A big mistake that people make, is they’ll practice “stay” and “come” at the same time. They’ll say “stay”, walk across the room and say “come”, it will make the dog anticipate the “come” and more likely to break their stay. So until your dog is super solid with both commands, do not put them together. ALWAYS go back to your dog in the beginning before releasing them. That way they’ll know that you will come back for them and be less likely to break the stay. Even once they are solid make sure you return to them at least half the time, so that they don’t think they’ll always be called and start anticipating.
Stay is a command that should be practiced daily, or almost daily, to continuously improve the stay, it’s such an important command!
