The stay - duration first - then distance.mov

Max is learning the stay. He is on a long leash and he's fairly tired, so he's choosing to do a down-stay instead of a sit-stay. That's fine with me!

First he goes into position (either sit or down) and I either show him the hand signal or give him the verbal cue, "Stay." Then I click and treat.

"What?!?" you might ask! " Why click and treat when he didn't do anything?" Well, it's to let him know that the cue for stay, either verbal or non-verbal, is always followed by a click and treat -- at least while he's still in doggie kindergaren! Besides, if I don't make him stay for any length of time, he doesn't have the opportunity to goof up! So I make it really quick the first couple of times.

As we progress, I start to count to myself after I give him the verbal cue. So I say to him, "Stay," and then start to count a few beats before I click and treat. You see, I have subtly graduated him to the first grade! Now he actually is staying, even though it's for a very short time.

As the grade levels continue, he's got to stay for longer and longer periods of time. This is called "building duration." Dogs can stay in a sit-stay for about one minute without fatigue, but can stay in a "down-stay" for up to one hour. (I'll never forget the glorious day when I got to watch a whole hour of Oprah and my dog actually stayed in position for the entire hour!)

In the second half of this video, Max is working on "building distance." I give him the cue, and then back away a few steps. I return right away, before he has a chance to goof up and break the stay. Then I click and treat! So it's still very easy for Max, and perhaps he starts thinking to himself, "Hey, this is easy. All I have to do is stay here and watch her do her thing, and I get a click-and-treat. Great!" Dogs who learn the "stay" this way actually enjoy it.

The third thing to build, which is not shown on this tape, is "distraction." That means that you take a dog who is doing very well at his level, and add a distraction to see if he can continue to do well. And you don't try to add distractions until you are very sure that he will succeed. Here's an idea to use:

Say I put Max in a down-stay. Then I reach into my pocket and pull out a tennis ball. I put the ball back in my pocket, then click-and-treat. Max may have been momentarily distracted by the ball, but not for long, and not in a really extreme way. So he has a very high chance of success at the stay.

After I do this a few more times, I decide to graduate him to the next grade level. So I pull out the ball and toss it about a foot above my hand, catch it, put it back in my pocket, and then click-and-treat Max. So he's still being reinforced for just sitting and watching me.

You can see that because I'm introducing a distraction in a really low-key way, Max is very unlikely to break the stay. Before I do something really wacky with the ball, like throw it right over his head or run past him with it, I will make sure that I'm about 90% sure that he will succeed in staying even with that level of distraction.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• clicker
• training
• positive
• reinforcement
• stay
• Max
• pet
• distance
• duration
• distraction