What “Stay” Means

What “Stay” Means

A reasonable amount of time is devoted to teaching our dogs to hold a position, which we usually term “stay” or “wait”. I used to teach both stay and wait. Stay meant to hold the position, no matter what. Wait meant to hold the position until otherwise directed. My first Boxer truly understood the difference between the two commands. If I used the wrong word and told her to stay when leaving her for a recall, she wasn’t going to come, no matter what. Of course, we did a lot more proofing of the exercises back then, but none of my dogs since has had a firm understanding of the difference between the two commands like she did. I no longer teach a different command and have moved to the position that stay means remain in position unless otherwise directed. This is especially true with the extinction of the out of sight groups in Open. Most of the applications for staying now involve progressive behaviors rather than static ones. 

Some handlers choose not to teach a command meaning “stay” at all. They merely expect the dog to remain in whatever position they were left until directed to do something different. That never made sense to me, but different methods work for different handlers and who am I to say what works for one person should work for everyone? 

Still, I have found other uses for the word “stay” that have come in handy over the years. My current puppy learned “mat work” from online webinars and it turned out to be very effective in teaching a calm, stationary response during training. Cookies “appeared” on the mat to make it more interesting at first. Once she would go to the mat by choice and I started adding a cue, it became a place she wanted to spend time. Often, Daisy would just go hang-out on the mat, lie down and watch me in case I might be getting her a cookie for such a nicely offered behavior. Often, she was correct; I noticed and got her a cookie. All of the mat work must have conditioned a comfortable association with staying in position, because I did not go though my usual method of teaching a dog to stay with her. Daisy simply did – stay. She will still need some proofing, but she has been amazingly reliable. It may be a fluke or Daisy may be as brilliant as she appears, but so far, so good. 

Recently I found a new application for the word stay. In teaching a formal retrieve I have spent some time teaching “hold”, but apparently such a lesson wasn’t completely clear to Daisy. When we got to the gloves she would come to front holding the glove and start to mouth. I would say “hold” and she would stop for a second, then mouth again – just one time in each instance. In a moment of frustration I changed the command to “stay”. Lo and behold, she froze in position and did not mouth again. So stay has become our “don’t mouth while in front” command. Funny how things work out! 

In a sense, stay has other applications that also mean freeze in place. I use it for the moving stand. My reasoning is that the dog is already standing, and to stop and stay is what I want her to do. In our Covid methods of competing I also use stay to leave my dog and place the leash on its holder. 

When you think about it, “stay” can be just as much of a life saver for your dog as “come”. Use it wisely, and make sure it is solidly reliable when you need it. 

Good training everyone, and stay safe!