Teaching the beginnings of the stay concept

How do you do it?

Here is how I start.....

First with little puppies, as early as 8-10 weeks even, I start target training. I put the pup on a mat or bed, and each time they move from it, I gently put them back. Each time I put them back I use the cue word for this behavior which I will use later. This is a casual command to tell the pup to stay on one place, not necessarily one position. I say "get on your bed". Puppies generally learn this pretty quick. I generally work this during our own meal times, and the pup will be rewarded with tidbits from the plate when he does well.

Next, once the pup is walking on lead, I begin with the sit/stay.

Using a buckle collar, I will apply just enough upward pressure to the collar to keep the pup in position, but not enough to make her uncomfortable. I switch the lead to my right hand, give the stay signal with my left as I say "stay" and pivot right in front of the pup, standing toe to toe. I keep a pleasant expression and demeanor, and a close eye on the puppy. After just a few seconds, I pivot back to heel and release and praise praise praise/play with the pup. I like to release a pup from stays with something they really really like. Sometimes food rewards, sometimes a tug game, or a game of fetch, depending on what the pup likes the most.

As soon as possible I begin releasing all pressure on the lead. If the puppy makes a mistake, I gently put them back into position. I will repeat position commands (sit) but not the stay command or signal.

Generally within just a few days I am out to the end of the 6 foot lead, and begin returning around behind the dog. As I begin returning around behind, I will touch the dog on the head to prevent movement. As always, I correct any movement by repositioning the dog exactly where it started. I may begin at this point to mark incorrect behavior with an ahah or uhoh.

I encourage eye contact and attention during all stays. As soon as a pup is routinely staying for 15 to 30 seconds, I being putting the lead down. I walk back in to food reward the pup at random intervals. At this point I also incorporate arms folded in front of me to indicate to the dog he has made a mistake. The only time I return to the dog with arms folded is if a mistake has been made. I still do not correct except to mark with ahah occasionally, or with the folded arms.

When the pup gets beyond 30 seconds, and is being mostly successful, I will introduce mild distractions. One of my favorite ones is teaching the pup to resist tension on the lead. Other things at this time to introduce are working in different locations, people walking by, etc.

I continue to work on attention, and on building time and distance. I also introduce very short periods of my walking out of sight early.

I work stays consistently and often. The key elements for me are not taking a dog on too fast, not correcting, never walking in to a dog with an attitude. This part I think is very important, and it is also a mistake that I find is very hard for some people to avoid. You must not walk towards your dog in an angry manner if they make a mistake. I work hard to return to my dog in the same manner each time, except for the folded arms, which only means no reward and repositioning. I never want my dogs to feel more stress than they have to during stays. Of course out of sight stays are stressful for most dogs. It is something they have to learn to deal with if you ever want to get to Open obedience.

I really love training stays. A reliable stay makes a dog a lot easier to work, travel, walk, and have fun with.

I am sure I have forgotten lots of things, but this is the basic way I start puppies and young dogs on learning stay.

At the same time I am teaching/training/working stays, I am also teaching and working consistently on attention, front, and heel positions. These 4 things to me are the basic blocks that you must have to get to advanced obedience.

So let's hear how you do it!

Mine is simple.

After the pup knows sit all I do is build duration. Once the pup is sitting in place reliably for 10 seconds then I label it with the cue stay. Then I work on building duration and distance.

Bounce learned stay in 3 sessions. Kaiden had a reliable sit and down stay by 8 weeks Most learn it in only a few, Zo was the exception but she needed to learn self control before she could do ANY duration behaviours. (interestingly I had a lesson with her when she was young. I had said I had issues getting her to stay... as in we had no stay. The instructor was a man and Zo found him stressful. She was sufficiently supressed she had a wonderful start line stay every time. Just showed she knew what I had been asking, just didn`t have the self control to comply.)

I do work on it lots of places, but my dogs compete in 'stuff' where stays are critical. So its one of the things we work on the most. (after focus work)

LOL living on a farm most of my dogs learn to heel first, the learn to walk on a leash.

I try not to give them a chance to move or break a stay so I don't have to put them back. Sometimes I'm not quick enough with reinforcing the baby steps though and it happens. But basically, I divide what I see as three different parts to the behavior; duration, distance and distractions. I don't work on more than one thing at a time for some time. I'll start out with say, duration but will not work on the other two. I stand right in front of the pup, no distance and ask for 1 second of stay, reinforce, then two seconds and so on, gradually asking for a little longer. Then I'll try moving my own body so I'm not directly facing the pup...just a little change here and there so he doesn't get too use to one single body position. But I'll stay close and reinforce for every couple of seconds. Whenever I change a criteria, I'm careful to relax something else.

Once he gets pretty good at staying for say, 10 seconds or more, I'll move onto adding some distance at which point I relax the duration. I'll step back one step and immediately return to being in front of him, reinforce. Then add another step further and immediately return and so on.

Once that is getting good, where I can back up maybe 6 feet or so, I'll sneak in an extra few seconds of duration before returning to him to reinforce. And gradually build on that.

At this stage, as he's been getting reinforced for staying with me standing back, I'll again start varying my own movements a little; standing sideways, stepping over to the side a step or two...adding these kinds of distractions. And eventually being able to look like I'm walking away.

When he's really getting good, I'll see what else I can get away with, like jumping up and down, waving my arms around, dropping a toy etc. And so it goes, building on distractions, varying my movements and position, testing him out. If he breaks the stay, I've tried too much too soon and I know I need to go back to where he was successful. I don't want him to fail too much. I want him to get as much chance for reinforcement as possible. And then over time, we just build on all that until finally, I can leave him and hide behind something...out of sight. Of course, each time I try something new, the other parts of the stay are relaxed while we build on that new thing.

Then of course, we incorporate it into sitting and staying during heel practice. I like to get my cue so that when I lead off with my right foot, that is the cue to stay. When I lead off with my left, that's the cue to heel and come along with me. But I keep my hand signal which becomes very subtle. With Lyric, I could walk off and just flick my wrist a tiny bit, which hung down by my thigh. No one could notice it. It was fun. Or I could use just a verbal whisper, "stay." So, I mixed and matched all those cues so they meant the same thing to him. My Chi's aren't that proficient because I don't work with them so very much.

I start out with getting a good sit by my side, then giving the cue "stay" (I use a flat hand in front of the dog's face), pause for one second and then quietly praise. I repeat this until I have a good solid stay for at least 10 seconds with the dog doing nothing but sitting at my side. Depending on the dog, this part can move pretty quickly. I then move on to pivoting in front of the dog, again, going back to a duration of 1-2 seconds to start with and then increasing the time as they get the idea. If they break the stay at any point, we go back to the beginning of just standing there side by side and work our way back out.

Every so often, I'll release and give a big reward, dancing around for a minute or so and then moving back into the exercise. I don't work on this for more than 5-7 minutes at a time to start with, just to keep it interesting.

I've gotten dogs to hold a stay with me jumping from side to side at the end of the leash in a room full of dogs after about 3 minutes, though obviously results can and do vary in that setting. But I've found this seems to get the idea set pretty quickly.

For me in the very beginning when molding/shaping the very beginnings of stay, I want the pup not to break, and work hard to prevent that.

However, as soon as the puppy shows that it understands the stay, then I begin distraction and I WORK for breaks. When I introduce distraction, I also work at reinforcing attention to me rather than the distractions. I walk in for rewards a LOT. I make sure to reward a lot more than I am putting the pup back. I will not work a puppy through more than 2 consecutive breaks before I back off so far on the distraction that success is a guarantee, then I release, reward, praise, and start again if the pup is still up for it.

For me personally I have found that I need about 6 months of steady routine training to get most dogs to a reliable stay under high distraction. I also find that stays under high distraction are a precision exercise, and like fronts and finishes need regular reinforcement to stay sharp.

Great discussion, keep it coming!

Good points Red. I know what you mean. Later, when the dog is pretty darn good, it is good to have a break or an almost break just to show him the contrast....sort of. It's bound to happen anyway a little. I remember using a NRM penty of times just as the dog was lifting his bum off the ground to get up. That does strengthen the behavior up a little more.

And I do what Zoom does too....after a few reps, we break it up and have some fun, do some other things, play fetch or whatever. Sometimes I'll do a few reps, one connected to the other, like I described. And sometimes I'll interrupt those reps by simply walking the dog around in a circle and starting a new one, as a new "exercise." I mix things up because they can get soooooo anticipatory. (Is that a word?) I remember my horses too, when training. They are the epitome of "anticipatory." LOL.

I agree so much Red that to keep sharp, they need a little practice and reinforcement all the time. I notice a very common thing with lots of people. They are so incredulous at how their dogs use to do this and that and now they've regressed. Well, of course! Behavior doesn't ever stay the same. There are always going to be factors or variables which have the potential to change some behavior. So, the things we want our dogs to do and keep doing, we need to either practice regularly with some things and/or have refreshers periodically with other things. It just depends. But regressions in training are normal as the sun rising in the east.

Exactly.

My dog is not going to forget how to heel or finish. However, if we don't work it for a while, position will be sloppy, and so will attention!