Teaching your dog to stay.
Teaching a stay correctly is one key training command that should be in all owner’s life skills tool kit.
Why? So here is a story that Specialist Dog Training received a few months ago: “We were contacted by an owner who thanked us about teaching their dog the stay. They had broken down on a very busy motorway and had to get the dog out of the car safely. The dog did not jump out of the car when door was opened and the harness was released, he stayed calm and waited until the owner was able to pick him up and move him to safety”.
Their dog was able to understand exactly what the owner wanted them to do and without hesitation stayed in the car until he was lifted to safety.
Often owners come to class and use either a stay or wait, however the stay and wait are two very different training commands and are taught very differently. The order that you teach a stay can have an impact on getting it right or very wrong.
Here are some training tips to teach a good solid stay:
- Never call your dog out of a stay.
- Teach a release command with a stay.
- A stay is not about distance and how far away you can move from your dog, it is about your dog understanding what the word means.
- Never mix up a stay command with any other command.
- Always reward your dog for staying in a calm way.