How to Teach a Dog to Stay

Teaching Your Dog to Stay

A leader in dog training schools, Animal Behavior College prepares students for one of the most basic pet exercises in dog training careers: how to teach a dog to stay.

Many pet owners love to enjoy the outdoors with their pets. For some, this can be challenging if your dog has not mastered the “stay” cue. Whether you’re at a social outing, a dog park or any other public location, you’ll want to teach your dog to stay when confronted with increased distractions.

The “stay” cue is a great exercise to increase your dog’s capacity to tolerate distractions, building his attention span while increasing his focus and response to you. As with all learning cues, repetition is important until the cue is successfully learned.

How to Teach the Stay Command

1. You’ll want to make sure your dog is on a leash. This is done for safety and also to help manage his behavior.

2. Stand directly in front of your dog and give the “stay” cue both with a hand signal and verbal cue. A traditional hand signal for “stay” is your flat palm held approximately six inches in front of the dog’s nose.

3. Count to three and then immediately drop your hand to your side and release the dog from “stay” by saying “OK.” Reward with praise and treats for a job well done.

4. Gradually increase the duration, distance and distraction level one component at a time.

Repeat and Practice

Throughout this dog training exercise, your dog will learn to focus on you. Also, your dog’s tolerance for enduring distractions will increase and provide each of you with greater assurance of the “stay” cue while in public.

Dogs like consistency from their owners. Of course, this is a two-way street with owners being assured of the kind of behavior they can rely on from their dogs.

Animal Behavior College enjoys a national reputation of being one of the premier dog training schools in the U.S. and Canada. As such, providing ongoing education and information for anyone in animal careers, as well as dog owners themselves, demonstrates examples of best practices in the animal care world.

Wondering how you can become a certified dog trainer? Check out our Dog Trainer Program for more information.