Clicker 3 - Sit & Down Stays

Be sure you have finished The Clicker lesson and have at least begun the Targeting, Attention, and Sit & Down lessons)
This lesson is really neat. It is a prime example of "Dogs do what works". Usually, if your dog sees food on the ground, what works is to walk over & eat it. In this lesson, he will learn that when you have said "Stay", what works is to simply remain in place & let your hand deliver it to his mouth! Yum!

To start, place about 5-6 little treats on the ground and have your dog sit facing the treats about 2' away (use a lure if needed to get him to sit - remember, we work on one thing at a time!). Kneel beside him, with your left hand gently holding his collar. Say "Stay" and wait. Of course... your dog will probably try to get the food. Just gently hold him back, luring back into a sit if needed (but not actually giving a treat for that). You may repeat "Stay". Keep replacing him.... and wait...... Eventually, he will give up trying and sit there, totally confused. When he has held still for 1-2 seconds, then you click and reach out quickly to get one of the treats & deliver it right to his mouth! The click ends the actual exercise, so it's no biggie if he gets up after hearing the click - he still gets the treat (he was holding the stay when he heard the click). Repeat until the little pile of treats is gone, getting him to sit again if he got up for the C&T. If he remains sitting between repetitions, that's great!

As soon as he is getting the concept, start requiring that he hold the stay a bit longer each time before you C&T. Increase the time just by a few seconds each time so he remains successful, getting up to perhaps 10-20 seconds. If at any point he gets up or lies down before you could C&T, give your NRM and start over. If that is happening too often then either you are moving too fast or the environment is too distracting. Adjust what you are doing (and/or where) until success is achieved. At this point you should be using a continuous reinforcement schedule (CRS).

Practice this several times for 5-6 treats-worth. By this point you have probably stopped holding onto his collar - that's fine, but stay alert so he never has the chance to snatch those treats off of the ground!

When he is getting quite relaxed about the whole thing, start giving the hand signal for Stay at the same time you say it. He will pick that up quickly since he already knows the more difficult verbal signal (we were able to teach the verbal first in this exercise since we were actually enforcing the Stay with the hand in the collar - so he was able to always pair the word with the correct behavior). The signal is just a slight "windshield" wipe with your right hand in front of his face, with your palm facing him.

Next you should begin placing the treats farther out. At this point I wouldn't go more than 4-5 feet. When that is easy go ahead to the next step. You should still be using a CRS.

No more kneeling & no more treats on the ground! Instead, stand with your dog sitting in heel position. Say & signal Stay, then step just 1' in front of him (facing him). If he held his position, C&T right away the first few times. After that, begin delaying the C&T for a count of 2. And, of course, praise!! Since the click ended the exercise, you may need to have him sit again before doing another repetition but you may also remain in front to give the command Stay again. (The hand signal from the front is just a little wave with your palm facing him so the motion looks the same from his perspective).

Remaining just 1-2' in front of your dog, begin increasing the time he needs to remain in the Stay before you C&T by a few seconds each time. Practice this at least once every day, doing about 5 reps per session, until your dog can hold the sit stay for 1 solid minute before you C&T. What a good dog! At that point you want to start being variable with the time, getting longer & longer times but also occasionally C&T'ing after very short stays. This will make the behavior much stronger. For example, do a 60 sec Stay, then a 65 second one. Then 10 sec, 70, 67, 74, 15, 80, 3, 84, 76...

You will also start adding distance at this point (being variable about it by including some closer Stays as well), but remember that we only work on one part of a behavior at a time, so when you start going farther away you should reduce your time expectations drastically. When both long stays (up close) and distance stays (for short times) are both reliable, you can start putting them together.

Remember that unlike most of the other behaviors we teach dogs to do upon our request, the stay is not very natural. In the wild, a pup who stayed while the pack went away was not likely to survive for long! So, be patient and increase your time (and later distance) in small increments. The younger the pup the more of a factor this is going to be - especially the distance. Give the baby a break & save working on distance until he is a bit older so he doesn't become stressed.

Next steps involve having you move around a bit, having mild distractions, etc.. Each time that you increase the difficulty by doing something like that, remember to back off on the difficulty of the other aspects - distance & time. Success breeds success!!

DOWN STAY Same as sit... but have the dog lie down first! :)

** Note to pet owners: if you are certain obedience competition is not in your dog's future, then you might decide that for you, "Stay" can mean "remain in that spot", with the actual body position not being a factor. If that's the case, it's okay if you left him in a Sit Stay but then he laid down - as long as he remained in place. If you have any interest in obedience competition, however, I wouldn't recommend this as I think that allowing a change of body positions like that would be more difficult to shape later.