Training Your Dog to Stay: A Step by Step Guide

In this guide

Stay asks more of a dog than almost any other basic command, since it requires holding still despite every instinct pulling them towards you, towards a distraction, or simply towards movement. Building it well means working on three separate factors one at a time rather than all at once.

The three Ds

Trainers commonly break stay down into duration, distance and distraction. Duration is how long your dog holds the position. Distance is how far you move away. Distraction is everything else competing for your dog's attention. The single biggest mistake in teaching stay is increasing more than one of these at a time, such as walking further away for a longer time while a delivery bike is going past outside. Build each one separately, and only combine them once each is solid on its own.

Starting duration

Ask your dog to sit, say "stay," and reward after a second while they are still in position. Gradually stretch this to five, then ten, then thirty seconds over several sessions, rewarding intermittently throughout rather than only at the end, so your dog understands that staying itself is being rewarded, not just the release.

Adding distance

Once your dog can hold a stay for around thirty seconds next to you, start taking a single step back before returning to reward. Build up distance slowly, one step at a time, returning to your dog to deliver the reward rather than calling them to you, which would undo the stay itself. A release word such as "okay" tells your dog exactly when the exercise has ended.

Adding real world distractions

• Practise stay while the gate is opened for the milk or newspaper delivery, a genuinely common moment for dogs to bolt.
• Practise stay near the door during Diwali or wedding season when firecrackers and loud sounds are more frequent, in a low intensity version well before the real event.
• Practise stay while guests enter the home, starting with one calm visitor before building up to a fuller gathering.

Article content © S Vejay Anand. All rights reserved.