How to get your Dog to Stay

There are three different positions for ‘stay’ – sit stay, down stay, and stand stay. Sit stay is used to keep your dog from running out the door or jumping on a visitor at the door, when your dog is meeting another person or dog, or if your dog is loose outside and you need to approach her. Down stay is used any time you need your dog to stay in a particular place for more than five minutes. It can be used for 30 minutes or more once your dog does it reliably. Stand stay is used primarily when your dog needs to be examined by the vet.

The Sit Stay

The sit-stay exercise makes specific use of language signals your dog is pre-programmed to interpret and understand. They are language tools used by the wolves and maternal domestic dogs, so your dog already knows them. From your dog's point of view, how much easier could it be?

From the human point of view, however, teaching the Sit-Stay may not be easy to begin with. Through learned behavior, adult humans are programmed to use nagging and force to get their way with dogs. We inanely repeat our words, push, prod, pry, pinch, choke and assault dogs to wring from them what we consider "obedient" behavior.

Wolves and dogs, however, are not capable of these physical manipulations; training tactics of pain, fear and force are not part of their repertoire when education is at hand. Canines must rely on encouragement, passive restraint, and passive intimidation to accomplish the education of their young.

Dogs talk to us in ways we must learn to recognize. A dog can easily put his rear to the ground and get a treat, or put his chest on the carpet to get a snack. He will do this whether you have his respect or not, simply because his actions serve to obtain one or more of his primary resources, in this case food. But for a dog to stay seated voluntarily at his owner's request with no other objectives – food or touching – means that he acknowledges your position as his leader. By way of his behavior, your dog is saying to you, "I acknowledge and I accept your leadership at this moment. I see that you are my mentor, and I prove this with my willing cooperation," just as he would signal to a higher-ranking dog or wolf. For an owner to achieve this kind of leadership through one exercise alone is both appealing and astonishing. You earn your dog's respect. In turn, earning your dog's respect will cause most minor behavior problems to dissipate.

Keep in mind that stay is an abstract concept for a dog to learn and understand. Sit means put your rear to the ground; down means put your rear end and your chest to the ground; come means run to your owner; but stay ...? Technically, stay means nothing to a dog. There is no motor response to your request that he can act upon - it is essentially the absence of a motor response. When your dog at last figures it out, his self-confidence blossoms. Increased self-confidence in dogs resolves a myriad of behavior problems.

In teaching sit-stay, patience is the key to success. Patience is a virtue and wolves have an endless supply. Look how well their social system works. Their limitless patience is the reason. So learn patience, don't do anything you are not instructed to do, watch your dog learn to sit-stay in less than 10 minutes, and watch behavior problems disappear.