4. Stay
Stay! This is an awesome trick to entertain guests and teach your puppy basic obedience. Learning this trick at a young age can help make your puppy more responsible, help them build a good foundation for tricks later on, and can even keep them safe.
This can be one of the more difficult tricks; however, if you learn to take your time and go through stages, you both can master the trick together. Stays typically improve as your puppy gets older and learns more self-control. As a baseline, a five-second stay is amazing for a puppy at 4 months. Every puppy is different, so pace yourself accordingly from where you are and where you want to be with your little one.
This trick will build off of break/release training. If you’re already familiar with it, keep going on. If you’re not, take a quick read here. Using break/release commands help create a defined beginning and end to your puppy’s training and tricks, creating structure for their time and helping to propel you both to success.
The Training
- Training your puppy a new command, especially one to stay still, can prove to be incredibly difficult at a young age. Remember - your puppy won’t be perfect on day one; a good “stay” will take several months (even a few years) to master. However, starting with good fundamentals and goals will help you and your puppy on your way.
- A good stay has three fundamentals components: duration, distance, and distractions.
- Duration: this is how long your puppy can last in their stay. When training your puppy for the first time, you will want to start with small durations (1-3 seconds).
- Distance: this is how far away from your puppy can last in their stay; you’ll want to start by being within arm’s reach or a few steps away from your puppy.
- Distractions: these are anything that can take your puppy’s attention away from their stay. Start in a quiet room in your house or in an area where you know you won’t have any distractions.
Steps:
- Starting beside your puppy, place them into a “Sit” or a “Down” (these are typically easier than a stand for your puppy to understand)
- Give your “Stay” command and then count to three.
- Release your puppy using your break/release command (if they don’t move, try to get your puppy to break their sit/down command by walking away and repeating).
- Repeat steps 1-3 while increasing the duration you ask your puppy to stay by 2 – 3 seconds at a time. If your puppy breaks his “Stay”, reset yourselves and ask them to “Stay” for a slightly shorter time than what you’ve had success with already.
- Once you’ve mastered the duration, try increasing your distance between each other by incrementally increasing the amount of steps you are standing away from them.
- After you have a strong foundation with duration & distance, you can start to incorporate distractions like new smells & sounds (ie: by going outside), slowly working your way up to more challenging environments.
The Tips
- The first golden tip - training your puppy before their mealtime (while you have their full attention and their stomach is empty!) From my experience, they start to learn quickly once you take the food away, giving you their full attention and beady puppy eyes. This is also a great opportunity to teach them mealtime manners by having them wait until they’re given the command to eat or to break from “Stay”.
- You can also start to practice “Stay” around the house - while you’re cooking, reading, watching videos, or doing basic chores. It helps to have inconspicuous bowls of dog treats around the house so they don’t know that you always have a treat. You can start rewarding them at various intervals throughout their stays but remember to not let them get up without giving them your release word.
- Try going around corners - you can start with a brief second eliminating you from their line of sight and then correcting them if they start to move without you giving the command.
- Practice throwing in distractions by asking them to stay then throwing a ball or their favorite toy in another direction. Another suggestion is to try practicing your stays around children or kids who are comfortable with dogs and see how they react – puppies love children (or as they know them – mini humans)!
- If you ever catch them getting antsy or distracted (i.e.: not looking at you, about to move), repeat your stay command until they listen. Don’t get mad if they break it - they don’t know any better. Try again and take a break if you get frustrated, you got this.
