how to stay

[hamrej23]

my 4 month old yellow lab is having a hard time staying.. he sits well, but do any of you have any helpful pointers on getting him to stay?

thanks.

j23

[FISHER ED]

4 months is possibly a little soon to be expecting too much in the "stay" area. If he sits well for you, start incorporating the stay once he is sitting. Make a game of it. Sit and stay for a real short time then release him. Next time, sit/stay and take a step or 2 back, reinforcing with the "stay" command. Have him sit/stay for a little bit then release him. Each time keep walking further and further away.

You will really know he understands it when you can walk around the corner of the house or something where he can't see you anymore. If he starts creeping your way, you know you have some more work to do. If he stays put, you're well on your way.

Good luck, these little guys can be a handful of fun can't they?

[Bushwacker]

First off, I am a first time dog owner so there are a lot of people that have far more knowledge than me. With that being said, I would suggest that sit and stay become one command. There is no time in training, field trials, or hunting, where this would be a negative thing. When you tell a dog to sit, it should stay sitting until you give him his next command, or you release him. At four months your dog is still very much a puppy and should be treated like one. At that stage I personally trained my female lab with reward based training. I would tell her sit and hold a treat for her. If she would break, I would tell her to sit again. She would not get the treat until she sat long enough for me to walk over to her, or until I gave her the "come" command. I would do this at least 10 times a day(I broke little puppy treats into thirds so she didn't get 10 full treats a day) I eventually got to the point where I could give the sit command, go up stairs or go into the house or whatever and I could come back and she would still be sitting there at 5 months of age. Now she just turned 14 months and I can give her the sit command in the field while pheasant hunting and she will sit all day until I release her. I also used the sit training to teach her whistle training. Instead of sit, I would vary it up with a one whistle to sit and two whistles to come. An important part of this training if you do it, or really any training that you do is to vary the locations. If you only give him the command in the backyard, he will have problems doing it in the front yard, etc. Good luck and enjoy him while he is a wild puppy, it is actually a great time when you look back on it.

[lawdog]

concur with pretty much everything you say. Sit and stay are one command with my dogs and they learn it by practicing it over and over again. I didn't ever train with treats though. Use petting/praise for the positive reinforcement as I think it builds a great bond between guy and dog and also doesn't condition them to think they get to eat all the time.

[Stiff]

I haven't done this for a long time, and I've never seen it in a book but here's how I did it.

Take a long lead (~20 feet) and attach it to your dogs collar. Now sit the dog down about five feet in front of a pole. (I used the clothes line pole in the back yard). Now instead of backing away from your dog right away - first wrap the lead back around the pole - then back away from him telling him to "stay" (or sit). If he breaks towards you, tighten the lead, which will actually hold him back away from you and comand to "stay" again.

Once he does, approach him again and give him praise for staying. It's just a slightly tricky way of maintaining control at a distance.

Good Luck,

Tony

[Bexter]

I agree with everyone's advice. Don't worry though - your dog will catch on soon. 4 months is kind of young yet - but it shouldn't be too much longer. Some dogs take longer than others.

We never really had to work too hard on it with our shorthair - she just seemed to catch on after awhile.

[marine_man]

The one thing I've learned with my 7 month old chocolate lab is to use the command sit... back up to varying distances (like everyone else has mentioned), but instead of releasing them to run to you walk back to the dog a couple of times as well...

The trouble I'm having on long distances now is he anticipates the release and creeps on me... but learning is half the fun I guess

Good Luck!

[hamrej23]

thank you all for all the advice, it is all fun though with these pups. i will try to incorporate som eof your thoughts into my training..

j23

[Bushwacker]

Marine Man,

When my pup started doing that I started doing something else so she thought my attention was not on her, like blow a duck call or walk around and pick up sticks in the yard and then in the middle I would give her a command. It worked pretty well in "unconditioning" her. She couldn't really anticipate when she would be released.

[marine_man]

Thanks for the tip Bushwacker... I'll give it a shot...

[Fishook]

When giving the "stay" command, try putting your open hand right in front of your dogs face with your palm facing the pup. Make the command a firm one ("STAY") with the open hand and back away keeping the hand open. Start with short distances of a foot or two. This is right out of "Water Dog" and has worked for me with every lab I have owned.