How To Teach Your Dog To Stay

The "stay" command is critical for your dog to learn for his own safety.  If you are in a crowded area or someplace where there is a lot of traffic you want to be able to control your dog so he doesn't rush out and get hurt.  Teaching your dog to stay can keep them out of harm's way.

Before your dog can learn the stay command you have to teach them the sit command.  Once he is become proficient in this command get him to sit and try the following steps.

1.  With the dog in the "sit" position, put your hand out towards him with the palm up and say the command "stay" firmly.

2.  Take one step back.  Your dog will probably try follow you but this is not the behavior you want so go back to step one and keep trying.

3.  Eventually your dog will actually stay for a limited amount of time while you take one step away.  When this does happen you want to reward him with the treat and of course pat them and tell them what a great dog he is.

4.  Now you need to get the dog to stay no matter how far away you go.  So you want to repeat the above steps each time moving further and further away.  The farther away you get from your dog the more difficult it will be to get him to actually stay where he is.

5.  One thing you can do is have someone else help you with this training.  Although it's best to get the dog to stay on his own, you can kind of give them a little bit of help by having the other person hold him in the "stay" position.  If you don't have another person you could try doing this training out by a tree where you have a long leash wrapped around a tree so that you can pull the dog back as he starts to come toward you.

Teaching this command takes a lot of patience, but it is well worth it.  Keep trying for about a half hour or so every day and eventually your dog will "get it".  Then you can move on to the next command.