Wait or Stay?

[Lizmo]

I am getting ready to teach a puppy some basic obedience, and was wondering what everyone thinks about the Commands Wait and Stay?

Like, does it make any difference to the dog wich command you choose? Or is it an unessesary command?

Lizzie knows both, but I don't want to confuse Maddie(Terrier, pup) about what word is for stay.

What do you guys think about the two words?

Thanks

[otch1]

It's always nice to have them know both. When teaching a "stay", you don't call your pup out of position, but rather stay close and release them. On a "wait", this will start out being used most often when going thru a door , before entering or exiting the car, ect. Teach puppy he doesn't move thru a door before you, never exiting without permission, by introducing a "sit", "wait", then pup moves with you.

[Doberluv]

I use them both. I use stay, meaning stay in the position you're in....don't move. I use wait for stay approximately in the place you are, but you can move a little bit. For example, when I'm taking my dogs down my looooong driveway off leash and I'm going to go onto the road...(this is a dirt lane which hardly has any cars on it, just a couple of houses on this road and it's full of pot holes and now, snow, so cars go about 10 mph) However, when we're getting closer to the end of the driveway, they're up ahead of me, I call out, "wait." And they stand there and mill around a little, but don't go further ahead to the road. I'd like to get this on a default behavior too, (talking about defaults in the other thread). So, stay is more precise and wait is more casual....similar. I would recommend you concentrate on teaching stay first, as it's reeeeeeelly important and later, you could fool around with the concept of wait.

I keep on replying and missing Otch's posts. LOL. Yes, I started out using wait for wait in the car until I release you to jump out. Now, that's on default. Dogs just wait automatically.

[Doberluv]

I take that back. You could do wait now too instead of waiting (pun) till much later. It's a good one for getting in and out of the car and the pup should learn that right soon. It's not stay because who cares if the dog stays in a particular position? Stay is like...if I ask the dog to sit and stay, he is to stay in that very position. Wait.....I don't care if the dog stands, sits, turns his head around, goes to sleep. Just hang out in approximately 5 square feet of where you are. LOL.

[Lizmo]

LOL Dober!

Thanks guys, that makes total sense to do it like that

[Spirit2010]

Hershey only knows Wait, I haven't gotten to Stay yet. Ya, both are great to know. I get confused though, so I haven't taught Hershey yet! lol I taught Hershey the Wait command with his food! It was easy to teach it that way. But, ya, both are great for a pup to know!

[Doberluv]

But don't listen to me. I described what wait is for me and my life style. It could mean something different for someone else. We probably do that with lots of things we discuss. Someone else may want the dog to wait more exact....closer to a stay. To someone else, wait may mean to not run to the next state. So, it just depends what suits you and the things you may be doing with your dog. When we're on an off leash hike and I would like the dogs to wait, I holler, "wait for me." LOL. And they do, but they mill around, maybe come back closer toward me. It basically means (for me) to not go further ahead on the trail but wait till I catch up. So, it's pretty sloppy, not very exacting. But when I said it for not getting out of the car, that meant to really wait right there until the release word, no jumping out. So, in that context, it's a little tighter than say, on a hike. And the dogs seem to get it just fine.

[BostonBanker]

I described what wait is for me and my life style. It could mean something different for someone else.

LOL. I use wait pretty much exclusively for doorways of all sorts. For Meg, wait means "don't cross this threshold". I use it if I jump out of the car to get the mail, if I'm running out of the house to get something from my car and don't want her following me, or if I'm running into the tackroom at the barn to grab something, and don't want to deal with her following me in (and then me inevitably forgetting to make sure she follows me back out). I don't care what else she does, as long as she doesn't cross the threshold. She can jump in the front seat, go into the back, sit, down, lick the hot chocolate cup in the cupholder, whatever. Just don't follow me.

I think it's one of the fun things about training dogs - the words mean whatever you want them to mean (assuming you train it). Decide what you want it to mean for Maddie, and just be consistent.

[Rubylove]

We tend to use `wait' a lot more than `stay' although we taught them stay first. Initially I would have thought that stay is a better thing to teach first, because although an ambiguous command, it's not so ambiguous as wait.

But now I think that's probably the other way around. If you can teach them to wait - wait to get in the car, wait to go through a door, and most importantly - wait for the reward that `waiting' garners (lol) - then a stay is the next logical step.

I use both wait and stay.

For any command where I am going to recommand the dog, I use wait. Recall. Moving Stand. Retrieve.

For any command where I am going to return to the dog and release it, I use stay. Like STAY. LOL

My logic is this: WAIT trains the dog to pay attention and stay alert, another command is coming, and when it does, you are allowed to move.

STAY trains the dog that you are not to move under any circumstances until I come back to get you. You can relax, and if you are on a down, you can even go to sleep. You don't need to worry, because I will be coming back to get you.