How to teach stay

[maays]

i have a 3 months old pup that i've been bringing to training class at petsmart.. and the method the trainer used doesn't work that well on my yorkie since she has such a short attention span and is super hyper once it comes to treats.

her method was for us to keep treating our pup and occasionaly saying stay and with the hand signal as well. then eventually move further away.

i want to know if anyone else used another method besides this one which worked well for their yorkie pup.

thanks!!

[Maximo]

I found a great book at the library authored by Deborah Wood titled "Little Dogs: Training your Pint-Sized Companion."

She writes that to teach stay, first teach your dog to sit. Have the dog sit, back up 6 inches and give the stay command. Give your dog a treat after one second and say "good sit-stay." Don't wait until you release the dog from staying to give a treat, otherwise the dog will not connect the reward with staying.

Gradually increase the time between giving the stay command and rewarding -- one second, 3 seconds, and so on. Give the reward after each successful stay.

Deborah also advises to teach "stay" as a trick and not like it is a punishment. In other words, be joyous in tone when giving the command and praise for successful completion.

[evab]

I have a book by Victoria Stillwell "It's me or the dog", she also did It's me or the dog USA on TV. The "Stay" command.

((The secret of teaching your dog to stay is not to move through the stages too fast. Build up gradually, both lengthening the time and distance. unlike other commands, you can repeat the STAY command without undermining the training. That's because you're not asking your dog to take a specific action, and to take it promptly. Instead you are asking the dog to do nothing at all.

Put your dog in the sitting position and stand infront of him.
Put your palm near his face and say STAY, wait a second and reward.
repeat and gradually lengthen the time between command and reward until he is staying for ten seconds.
Then you can take a step back. If your dog moves to follow you, give a correct "UH OH"! and try again.
Slowly lengthen the distance between you. Always go back to the dog and on't praise or reward him until you are physically close to him again. praising from a distance will only encourage him to come to you, which undermines what you are trying to teaching him.))

Hope this helps

[YorkieMother]

You should not use a word command until you have the thing which you want them to do the way you want it. Just shhhhhh.

So it is sit...pause....release which is lets go or up or ok. treat and draw the dog out of sit or down.

again sit......pause longer this time ...release.
dog can be infornt or in heel for this.

You work on time lenght of sit stay or distance you do not work both at once and until you have the lenght and the time you want them to stay at a level you are comfortable you do not add a word command.

Distance is sit..you wiggle in place treat and move dog.
next is you take a tiny step back and then forward and release the dog.

We all and me included tend to teach a word before the action and then have to replace the word once we get the action shaped to what we want it to be a ton easier to shape that which we want to the completed form than put a word on the action. As the dog will need to continually relearn the word stay is changable so stay right now is a second but the next it is three steps away or 5 seconds... shhhh no word to action until you get that 3 minute down stay then word it for the judges.

My dogs do not have stay they have sit or down until I say get up period.
Everyone else in the house uses stay after a sit and I giggle as the dog already in a stay on sit but the dogs kids are ok with that.

JL

[CruiserCody]

Originally Posted by maays

i have a 3 months old pup that i've been bringing to training class at petsmart.. and the method the trainer used doesn't work that well on my yorkie since she has such a short attention span and is super hyper once it comes to treats.

her method was for us to keep treating our pup and occasionaly saying stay and with the hand signal as well. then eventually move further away.

i want to know if anyone else used another method besides this one which worked well for their yorkie pup.

thanks!!

Cody just finished the Petco puppy class and it sounds like they use similar methods. He is doing pretty well with stay the way that you described. I can have him sit or lie down and walk away about 20-30 feet and he will usually stay there until I call him. We're still working on it when there's a distraction - he loses focus. Cody is 5 mo old.

[capt_noonie]

Originally Posted by Maximo

I found a great book at the library authored by Deborah Wood titled "Little Dogs: Training your Pint-Sized Companion."

She writes that to teach stay, first teach your dog to sit. Have the dog sit, back up 6 inches and give the stay command. Give your dog a treat after one second and say "good sit-stay." Don't wait until you release the dog from staying to give a treat, otherwise the dog will not connect the reward with staying.

Gradually increase the time between giving the stay command and rewarding -- one second, 3 seconds, and so on. Give the reward after each successful stay.

Deborah also advises to teach "stay" as a trick and not like it is a punishment. In other words, be joyous in tone when giving the command and praise for successful completion.

Originally Posted by evab

I have a book by Victoria Stillwell "It's me or the dog", she also did It's me or the dog USA on TV. The "Stay" command.

((The secret of teaching your dog to stay is not to move through the stages too fast. Build up gradually, both lengthening the time and distance. unlike other commands, you can repeat the STAY command without undermining the training. That's because you're not asking your dog to take a specific action, and to take it promptly. Instead you are asking the dog to do nothing at all.

Put your dog in the sitting position and stand infront of him.
Put your palm near his face and say STAY, wait a second and reward.
repeat and gradually lengthen the time between command and reward until he is staying for ten seconds.
Then you can take a step back. If your dog moves to follow you, give a correct "UH OH"! and try again.
Slowly lengthen the distance between you. Always go back to the dog and on't praise or reward him until you are physically close to him again. praising from a distance will only encourage him to come to you, which undermines what you are trying to teaching him.))

Hope this helps

I used a similar method to train Uni as well. Back up a few steps and return to you dog and then reward. I use the hand signal and voice command from the beginning. Now Uni will stay on the voice command alone. Once they get it, try turning you back also. Go around the house and come back, they will stay until you release them.

This also worked out doubly well for us, as stay for her also can mean freeze or stop. If she is playful and doesn't want to be picked up (jumping around and dodging you) I say stay and she will stop and stand there 9tail wagging too ) and then i can pick her up. Or if we are outside peeing and she is done, I say stay and she will not move so I can pick her up and cross the parking lot.

[maays]

Originally Posted by capt_noonie

I used a similar method to train Uni as well. Back up a few steps and return to you dog and then reward. I use the hand signal and voice command from the beginning. Now Uni will stay on the voice command alone. Once they get it, try turning you back also. Go around the house and come back, they will stay until you release them.

This also worked out doubly well for us, as stay for her also can mean freeze or stop. If she is playful and doesn't want to be picked up (jumping around and dodging you) I say stay and she will stop and stand there 9tail wagging too ) and then i can pick her up. Or if we are outside peeing and she is done, I say stay and she will not move so I can pick her up and cross the parking lot.

aww that's so cute!! i wish kiwi would learn faster. how long did it take Uni to do that? maybe cus shes only 3 months so i have to be more patient but everytime i try to do stay with her she just jumps up right after i feed her the reward. i've been trying to give her things and make her wait a few seconds before i let her have it. i hope she will learn soon

[BellaNean]

I couldnt get hannah to stay for anything! As soon as I would say stay or even move she would move with me!

The way I taught her was to have her sit as I was at her level bent down. I would feed her treats and say stay, so she would understand that if she stayed that she would get a treat. I then would slowly start moving my hand to the side for her to stay, when she started not to move i would back away slowly, still on my knees remind you. When she stayed for that I got up and moved away. Hannah now stays and I can go across the room.

It took me quite a long time to get her to stay and i was very frustrated but didnt give up! Once she learned that stay meant she got a treat she would stay for hours! GOODLUCK!

[maays]

Originally Posted by BellaNean

I couldnt get hannah to stay for anything! As soon as I would say stay or even move she would move with me!

The way I taught her was to have her sit as I was at her level bent down. I would feed her treats and say stay, so she would understand that if she stayed that she would get a treat. I then would slowly start moving my hand to the side for her to stay, when she started not to move i would back away slowly, still on my knees remind you. When she stayed for that I got up and moved away. Hannah now stays and I can go across the room.

It took me quite a long time to get her to stay and i was very frustrated but didnt give up! Once she learned that stay meant she got a treat she would stay for hours! GOODLUCK!

that's exactly how kiwi is! sometimes i would have luck with her practicing stay. she would either sit or lay down. and i would say stay, give her hand signal, and then wait 3 secs to give her the treat. but other times she would get up and jump for the treat. maybe i am not consistent enough since i don't train her everyday.

how long did it take you to get Hannah to stay?

[capt_noonie]

Originally Posted by maays

that's exactly how kiwi is! sometimes i would have luck with her practicing stay. she would either sit or lay down. and i would say stay, give her hand signal, and then wait 3 secs to give her the treat. but other times she would get up and jump for the treat. maybe i am not consistent enough since i don't train her everyday.

how long did it take you to get Hannah to stay?

Sit or down is both fine for teaching stay. they just need to realize "stay" means don't do anything. You're on the right track. She's only 3 months! She's in her super hyper playful mode now. Don't worry she'll get it.

[BellaNean]

Originally Posted by maays

how long did it take you to get Hannah to stay?

I tried for weeks with her and she didnt stay! But then again I would give up pretty easily when she wouldnt do it. One day I told myself I would not give up until she did it. It took me about 30 minutes until she just stayed!! There are times when it takes a minute for her to sit because she really wants that treat, but once I get her in the sit posistion she usually stays now. GOOD LUCK!

[maays]

Originally Posted by BellaNean

I tried for weeks with her and she didnt stay! But then again I would give up pretty easily when she wouldnt do it. One day I told myself I would not give up until she did it. It took me about 30 minutes until she just stayed!! There are times when it takes a minute for her to sit because she really wants that treat, but once I get her in the sit posistion she usually stays now. GOOD LUCK!

with kiwi, she would always sit when she sees a treat. but she has such a short attention span i never train her for more than 10 minutes a day. do u think that's too little??

[BellaNean]

Originally Posted by maays

with kiwi, she would always sit when she sees a treat. but she has such a short attention span i never train her for more than 10 minutes a day. do u think that's too little??

do you give up when she doesnt stay and give her the treat? Once she realizes she isnt getting the treat if she moves that should help. Does she know leave it yet? Hannah does really good with leave it so when she goes for the treat i always move it away from her reach. Maybe add another 10 minutes to the training per day! It wont hurt! Im trying to teach hannah to sit pretty but she cant quite get the balance down yet! haha

[maays]

Originally Posted by BellaNean

do you give up when she doesnt stay and give her the treat? Once she realizes she isnt getting the treat if she moves that should help. Does she know leave it yet? Hannah does really good with leave it so when she goes for the treat i always move it away from her reach. Maybe add another 10 minutes to the training per day! It wont hurt! Im trying to teach hannah to sit pretty but she cant quite get the balance down yet! haha

if kiwi doesn't stay i would never give her a treat. i would only give her a treat if she stays and not get up. i am trying to teach kiwi leave it as well. if i have the treat in my hand infront of her face, she wouldnt even bother with it anymore. but when i try putting it on the floor and saying leave it she's sooo hyper and goes crazy for it. the only thing she knows how to do is sit and down sadly. and sometimes she would get sit and down mixed up.

[YorkieMother]

Originally Posted by maays

if kiwi doesn't stay i would never give her a treat. i would only give her a treat if she stays and not get up. i am trying to teach kiwi leave it as well. if i have the treat in my hand infront of her face, she wouldnt even bother with it anymore. but when i try putting it on the floor and saying leave it she's sooo hyper and goes crazy for it. the only thing she knows how to do is sit and down sadly. and sometimes she would get sit and down mixed up.

You teach leave it on the floor the same way you teach leave it in your hand. Stop her getting to it until you want her to. Or what I do is they never get that one as leave it is leave it and I give them one out of my hand for looking or backing off the treat.
I place treat on floor and use my shoed foot to gently block the dog from getting it by placing my foot over the treat on the floor and only move my foot if they back off. If they swoop forward to get it I move my foot over it again.

Getting down and sit mixed up is normal and she is anticipating you and trying to meet your needs ahead of you as she is thrilled to work for you and the treats.

JL