How to Work on the "Stay" Command Gradually with Your Dog

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Elise McMahon for Expert Village and today we are talking about how to teach your dog a reliable stay. If you would like to find out more about my resources, you can visit my website at canineheadstart.com. So we are going to be talking about how to begin gradually increasing your work with the stay and what we first start with is, is we first begin with increasing the duration, the time, the length of time that you ask your dog to hold the position. One thing you do not want to do is increase distance from your dog and time away from your dog at the same time. Very important to work gradually. We started by asking the dog to stay when we are standing right next to them and now we are going to start working a little bit on length. So I am going to do a 15 second stay with Ursa and I work in a sit with her. Ursa sit… good girl… Ursa stay… so I am going to work 15 seconds rather with her in the stay and again I am rewarding her while she holds that stay… good girl… She is still holding it. Good girl. So what we are doing here is we are increasing duration. Good girl… Good girl… Notice that while I am increasing duration I have got the distance short. Okay good girl. Now we are going to do distance. When we start to add distance we are going to do it gradually and we are going to decrease duration. Ursa this way… Sit… Good girl… Stay… So I can move away from the dog. I have added distance but I am going to come right back… good girl… okay and release the dog. So I am not putting distance and duration at the same time. Stay close for long periods get away from your dog for short periods and that’s how you start working gradually on the stay with your dog. "