How To Teach Your Dog to ‘Stay’

Teaching your dog how to ‘stay’ may be one of the most useful and important commands you will ever teach them. Teaching your dog how to ‘stay’ can keep them out of trouble and safe from danger. Follow the steps below as a guide to teach your beloved dog how to ‘stay’ on command.

Steps To Teaching Your Dog How To Stay:

1. Starting indoors, attach a short leash to your dog.

2. Tell your dog to sit and praise her with a treat.

3. Now, facing your dog, take a step back, say her name followed by ‘stay’.

4. If she stays, praise her with a treat, if she moves give her no praise and no treat. Just take her back to her starting location and try again.

5. Repeat step 4, until she successfully stays.

6. With each success, increase the number of steps you take back. For example, after your dog successfully stays after you take 1 step back, start over, but the next time take 2 steps back.

7. Continue this until you reach 5 – 8 steps back, now remove her leash and start again with 1 step back.

8. Continue these steps again without the leash.

9. Once you reach 5-8 steps back without the leash, next take her outside into a fenced area and continue the training, again starting with 1 step back.

10. Continue these steps until she masters the command.

11. The final step to the training is to increase the time between her successful action and giving her a treat. For example, initially, you want to praise her and give her a treat immediately upon her successfully ‘staying’. However, you want to slowly fade the treat and praise out of the command altogether. This way, she will learn to listen even when you don’t have treats ready in hand.

12. That’s it!