Stays: What does distance mean?

There are two types of distance in stay work.

Type 1: Distance between you and your dog

This type seems pretty obvious, right? This term can also mean where your body is in relation to the dog. So, standing in front, standing to the side and standing in back are all important. Be sure to practice distance from your dog at each spot!

The distance between you and your dog needs to be built up slowly. The amount of distractions in an environment can impact how well your dog does with distance stays.

Type 2: Distance between your dog and distractions

It is important when training stays to remember that low distraction environments are easier to train in than high distraction environments.

But, we can help our dogs learn to work in a high distraction environment by increasing the value of the reward and increasing the distance between ourselves and the distractions.

For instance, if I am working on stays near a busy playground, I will first pick a safe spot far away from the playground. Then, over time, I will slowly decrease the distance between the dog and the playground. It is far better to proceed too slowly than to go too quickly.

If the stay becomes difficult for your dog (they are not paying attention or break the stay a few times), then move 5 feet away from the distraction and try again. If you are still not getting a good 1-2 second stay, then increase distance more.

Breaking stays are a sign of:

• Too much distraction
• Length of stay is too long
• Distance between you and the dog is too far
• Not enough reward
• Not enough practice

If you constantly have to put the dog back in a stay, then try changing one or more of the above to lower criteria (shorter length, distance, fewer distractions) and using a higher value treat.

Stay - Part 1

A very brief overview!

Stays have three major components: distance, duration and distraction.

Distance: This is the amount of space between you and your dog.

Duration: This is the amount of time that a dog holds its stay.

Distraction: This is what is going on in around the dog while it is doing its stay.

For beginning stays, we only change one component at a time. So, if we are standing close to our dog, we can ask for a longer stay or we can add a distraction, but not both at the same time. If we are standing away from our dog, we should have the duration and the distractions as low as possible.

For more advanced dogs, we can change more components at a time.

When working on stays, we need to be able to reward in position. This means into the dog’s mouth when the dog is doing a sit-stay or between the dog’s front feet when doing a down-stay.

If you are using a clicker, remember that a click marks he end of the behavior, so your dog will/can break the stay. Training a release word (OK), which is different than your clicker/marker word (YES), is useful.

Some do’s and don’t’s:

Do reward in position.

Don’t drill too many stays at once (or boredom will set in).

Do treat before the dog has broken the stay. In fact, it is better to treat long before you think your dog will break its stay than to keep re-cueing the stay.

Do work with one beginner dog at a time.

Don’t try to lump stay behavior. In other words, take your time! A five second stay is great at first, but don’t try to jump from there to a 2 minute stay! Or, one foot away from your dog does not translate to 20 feet.