How to Introduce "Stay" to a Sitting Dog

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Elise McMahon for Expert Village and in this video series we are talking about how to teach a reliable stay to your dog. If you would like to find out more about my services, you can visit my website at canineheadstart.com. So we were talking about how to introduce the stay. One of the things you want to do when you are working with your dog and you are first introducing the stay is you are going to work on the position that it is easiest for your dog to comply with. For most dogs that position is sit and that is simply because most people use the sit command more often than they use any other command. The majority of dogs are taught to sit and down; down is a secondary focus for most owners and very few dogs are taught hold a stand. So we are going to start introducing this stay with a behavior which is easy for the dog to comply with. Let's work Ursa… Good girl… Ursa sit… Again we mark and reward our dog. Good girl… When you are just starting working with the stay you are going to stand by your dog. Ursa watch you want to get your dog’s attention. Watch and you can reward your dog for giving their attention to you. Munchkin… stay. You have given the command and you are going to stay with your dog. Good girl… Good girl… Good girl… and you can see that I am rewarding her for holding her position. Good girl… and now I am going to release her. Okay good job… So I am not challenging her right off the bat. A lot of people like to start working with stay. You put their dog in a stay and they start moving off right away. Well your dog is going to inevitably get up and go with you and you are going to have to go over it again. So we would like to set the dogs up for a success and so we are going to start with the easiest position and we are not going to move. We are just going to reward them for sitting there. "