Hi

I've completed the bronze and silver good citizen award tests with my dog Holly and I want to do gold now. I haven't been to any training because she's fine with it all except the stays out of sight. She's fine with just staying normally but the moment I step out the room or hide she breaks it and comes to find me.

Does anyone know how I can train her to stay without me being there?

Thanks

Hi Ana,

I am no expert at all but I may have a way??

To get the idea introduce treats (like the soft chew sticks). Walk away from her while sitting, and still in the same room. Then go back to her and give her a treat. Then go further away and give her a treat and so on....
Then finally, when she has got the idea, go out of the room, but come back straight away, leaving her no length of time and give her the treat.
Also, maybe try it when she is tired, I know mine is best when he is tired...

I don't know if anyone else has any other ideas or simillar ideas but I would be very interested to know them anyway.

Let me know anyway....

(you may have already tried it, like I say I'm no expert)

Thanks, Ashleigh

you have to build the stays up slowly, if she is happy with you insight,when ;you  go to do the out of sight ones she may be just panicky that you have left her, my rottie male was like that, so the instructor made me leave him and walk away about the length of a living room,turn around and straight back to him,and praise, then i would do it again but stay still at the end of the room, give no eye contact at all then go back to him, but the instructor always said if you think your dog is going to break go back to them praise instead of letting them break, then we progressed to a sit or down stay and we would walk away and go to the end of the room and then move left or right still giving the command of wait or stay whichever then we would go back we moved so the dog knew that we would sometime move when they where in the stay positon,we where also made to walk in a big circle all the way around our dogs, this made them start and have solid stays,as they where not sure what we where going to do, then as the dogs got better and better, we have things we can walk behind at club, a colomun beside the cafe and we used to set our dogs up and then walk towards the colomun around the coloumn so we where out of sight for about a second and then back to the dog and praise, but anytime it looked like the dogs where to break we went back to them to reassure them and praise them, then of course we started to go behind the column and count to 3 and then walk out back to the dog and praise, we started to then do this for longer, and then we started to go to the office door and the same princaple walk through the door straight back out and then get it longer and longer through the door, it takes time and patience and if you build up slowly you should be able to get solid stays, someone else probley can tell you better but this way worked for me and i now have a dog that is comfortable to do a 5 min down and we are building up everyweek to longer and longer, but i still go back if he looks stressed or is going to break,
Carol

Stay training is the most undertrained competition exercise because the perception is that it is "easy" as all the dog has to do is lie/sit/stand for a period of time.

Dogs need to be thoroughly trained to complete stays successfully and reliably and most people move on far too quickly and end up with unreliable dogs because the dog does not understand the exercise.

Also people try to introduce too many variables at once before proofing each stage.

The first stage is duration and this must be built up with the dog beside you in the required position for the maximum required time.  Once this has been accomplished this must be proofed in all sorts of areas with no distractions.

The second stage is distraction, whilst you are adjacent to your dog, going back to small periods of time you must accustom the dog to you jumping, lying down, sitting, whistling, singing, throwing balls, food etc and again build up the duration, and once more proofing in various locations, each time starting from seconds as each time you change a location you should treat it as a new exercise for the dog which it effectively is.

The third stage is distance, again you reduce the duration and distraction but increase the distance, and then you proof this by going away in front, to the side, behind etc.

The fourth stage is going out of sight, again you reduce the duration and just literally go behind a door and reappear again.  One of the key points in going out of sight is that you should be able to see your dog at all times even if he cannot see you so that you are aware of all his behaviour during this time.  Dogs should not be allowed to scratch, sniff or conduct any other displacement activity; the stay is an exercise in concentration.  dogs should always be rewarded with food whilst in the required position to reinforce the behaviour and released quietly with NO tossing of balls etc, all rewards should be associated with the stay not the release.

HTH

I have no intention of ever doing any kind of formal training with Millie, other than just teaching her to behave a bit for me, but I'm going to give that a try.  She will stay, and will let me walk down the hall away from her as long as she can see me, so for a good 10 seconds she will stay (and I'm not expecting anymore from her yet, being a puppy), but at puppy school or out in the park she won't stay for love nor money, for more than about 2-3 seconds, and its definately the distractions that causing the problems.  I have been practising and practising, focusing on leaving her a little bit longer each time, but from now on that stops and I'm going to try tohme's way - back to basics, getting her to stay without moving, whilst I am next to her, and then moving on to me doing silly things next to her.  Even though I wasn't the one that asked, thanks for the advice, another great tip!