Teaching your dog to stay is one of the most important skills your dog can learn. Staying isn’t just a clue to basic manners, but it makes life easier with a dog by successfully communicating so it doesn’t rush out a door. Staying is also a basic skill if you want to explore any type of canine sport or activity.
Supplies needed to teach your dog to stay:
- Quiet place to train
- Small pieces of treats that your dog is happy about
- Patience
Steps to teach a dog to stay
For many dogs, the easiest way to teach Stay on Cue is to either teach a Sit-Stay or Down-Stay. Eventually, you’ll use these same steps to learn how to stand, but it’s usually harder for dogs to learn. Before training your dog to stay, make sure he has a solid understanding of a sit signal and/or a down signal.
Step 1: Start inside your home or another very quiet place without a lot of distractions. Invite your dog to sit or sit. Praise and reward your dog for sitting, release your dog with a release signal, or toss a treat to get your dog to change position.
2nd step: Ask your dog to sit back down and this time wait a few seconds before treating and releasing your dog with lots of praise and treats. Repeat, wait a few seconds before processing and releasing. This is where patience is particularly important. The goal here is not to see how long your dog will hold the position, but rather to slowly increase the duration, so starting with just a few seconds is enough.
Step 3: After a few repetitions, slowly, in increments of a few seconds at a time, increase the amount of time you ask your dog to hold their sit or down position before you praise and release. If your dog gets up, that’s okay! Just ask him to sit down again, wait a few seconds, then praise him and treat him.
Step 4: When your dog is consistently holding a sit/down for a short period of time, between 10 and 20 seconds, introduce the verbal cue of your choice to stay, such as “Wait” or “Stay” when asking your dog to sit/down. , give the verbal signal then wait a few seconds before processing/releasing.
Step 5: Slowly increase the amount of time you ask your dog to hold his stay. Remember to slightly increase the amount of time you ask your dog to hold each time, making sure to praise and reward your dog for a job well done.
Step 6: Along with increasing the amount of time you ask your dog to sit or lie down, start slowly increasing the level of distraction around your dog. Move slowly around your dog while he is in the Stay position, then increase distraction levels, such as tossing toys, then venturing outside to areas with more sights and sounds. Slowly increase distraction levels until your dog can hold a stick. Stay close to high-level distractions, such as the presence of other dogs.
Break the Stay cue:
If at any time your dog breaks his stay, do not scold or punish him; instead, just calmly ask your dog to sit/sit again, but this time ask for a slightly shorter dwell time – make your dog succeed. When a dog breaks off, they are communicating that they are not yet ready to handle that level of distraction or length of stay, which is important information we need to have as dog owners/trainers. As a general rule: End your training session on a high note, where your dog successfully completes the exercise.