Got Stay? May 2018 Training Challenge

[Amanda]

For May we are going to challenge our dogs to build their Stay behavior! We will officially start May 1. Here are the guidelines:

1. Kick off with a short description of your goal behavior as well as where your starting point is.
2. Commit to working on this behavior throughout the month.
3. Check in with progress reports once a week.
4. Feel free to share brags or questions to troubleshoot sticky spots.
5. Have fun with your dog!

If you can video your final result for the end of the challenge, that would be awesome!! If you are late to join in, that’s ok! Jump in!

I’ll start. Jovie has a decent stay at home. I want to build her stay for a solid agility start line. My goal is to have her hold a stay at the park or agility class while I lead out by at least two obstacles (approx 15-20ft with distractions).

[emmas_mom]

Maggie understands 'stay' (or, apparently, 'Wait" as she is more consistent with that word, combined with a hand signal, which likely came from her training before I adopted her). But she needs work on holding it, both with and without distractions. She's inconsistent - she held it beautifully when we were doing an exercise adjacent to a noisy dog park and a parking lot, but if she is on her mat waiting for me to prep her dinner and the cat isn't also waiting nearby, she races around in circles barking her fool head off, trying to get Allie to move to the cat feeding station.
I may be confusing two commands here - on your mat, and stay - so I'm not sure if I need to separate the two activities and just work on the stay in other parts of the house that aren't associated with her mat or with meal prep. She knows 'on your mat' very well, in that she goes to her mat right away - she just doesn't stay if the cat isn't also on the cat's 'mat'. Ideas? Stay isn't a command I use much as she is never off leash outside of the house or a completely secure area due to her strong flight response when stressed or alarmed.

[connie]

I'll do this with Miss Dee, who regards 'stay' as a momentary pause in her intentions.
I'd like her to have a one-minute down-stay -- I may use a different cue word to let her know that it's a settle-in-place exercise -- and I want her to hold a stay even when there is food on the floor three feet from her.
It's good to have goals. So, we start May 1?

[Amanda]

Well, I figured that since we were already halfway through April that I would start it in May. And maybe with some extra time, more people will see the thread and join in. But feel free to start training now!

Jean- in reference to training stay vs on your mat, I treat the mat cue as an implied stay. So either word would work, but I think adding stay to the mat cue is redundant for me. The definition for “go to your mat” (to me) is: Target the mat, lay down, stay until released. But I don’t say “stay” with it. For the feeding time situation, I might handle that by managing her behavior (leashed to me, confined in another room, crates maybe). Prep her food without her nearby. Then bring her in and send to the mat, inmediately release to eat before the frenzy begins. Then increase the time she stays before released and add in fake “prep”. Meanwhile I would practice the mat stays in other contexts away from food and prep time. Both in the kitchen and other locations.

[maxs_mommy]

Max used to have a decent stay, back when he was only selectively deaf. Now that he's fully deaf for real he's "forgotten". We'll work on rebuilding that. Extra credit will be a prolonged stay or a stay out of sight, neither of which he's ever been solid on.

[JudyL]

I would love to teach this and have never been successful at getting any sort of prolonged stay, and I've never been successful at keeping any of the dogs out of the kitchen at any time food is involved. I'd be satisfied to have a good prolonged stay with me in sight at this point.

[SherriA]

Henry needs to work on duration. He "forgets" that he's working, or comes to remind me "hey lady! I'm doing good work over here, are you noticing?" We should be able to get 1 minute, but I'd really like 3 or 5 minutes. Stretch goals!

[Jen]

Henry needs to work on duration. He "forgets" that he's working, or comes to remind me "hey lady! I'm doing good work over here, are you noticing?" We should be able to get 1 minute, but I'd really like 3 or 5 minutes. Stretch goals!

That is Bella with her "go to mat" during meals. We tend to be fast eaters, and she always gets a bite from each plate after we're finished. So if we take longer than usual or go too long between bites so that she thinks we're finished, she runs over and boops a knee and then backs onto her mat again. It never fails to make us laugh, and we do tend to remember that "oh yeah, we're finished eating and are just sitting here talking" and then give her her bite, so of course it's reinforced.

I'll skip this challenge because Bella's stay is actually really good apart from dinnertime, and, like I said, we reinforce the booping, so it's okay. But I'm looking forward to other challenges!

[emmas_mom]

Well, it's May 1st, so the beginning of the first challenge. I have been testing out Maggie's abilities in order to refine my goals (thanks for the tips, Amanda). Maggie can presently hold a stay for 20 seconds (consistently) while I am at a distance of 12 feet, but only 5 seconds consistently if I disappear from sight. My goal is to have her hold a stay for one minute with me in sight, and for 15 seconds with me out of sight. These stays will not be during meal time prep, but they may involved distractions such as the cat walking by.

[SherriA]

Woo hoo! We're getting started. I'm going to work through the protocol that Amanda linked to in another thread, with some modifications. I don't expect Henry to ever stay calmly when the doorbell rings or someone knocks But I think that, with consistent practice like this, we can get to a longer stay like 3 minutes.

[Amanda]

You might be surprised, Sherri! Record your doorbell on your phone and start it at a low volume. See if you can get up to the real thing at some point!

Here’s a cool article by Hannah Branigan on stay. It’s a bit of a different perspective, but I really like it.

https://wonderpupstraining.com/articles ... -i-go-now/

I worked a bit on Jovie’s stay at the end of April. We will get back to it when I get home tomorrow! Should be way more challenging now that I basically have two puppies.

[Amanda]

Also, here’s the relaxation protocol. It’s a download for the audio files. There is a link for the written version on the page as well.

https://championofmyheart.com/relaxatio ... mp3-files/

[SherriA]

That's an interesting article. Thanks Amanda!

[JudyL]

Well, my new training challenge ended up as different than the stay. Hope it's ok to post that here. I ended up teaching Benson to go down a ramp from kitchen to garage instead of using the steps. The top of the ramp is flush with the top step. Previous to this, I had him willing to go down if he was at the top and I was at the bottom and encouraging him to come toward me but hadn't really worked on going down and away from me while I stood at the top.

I now have him going down and away fairly consistently. He did it a couple of times for Paul and then Paul somehow either scared him or did something erratic and now won't for him again. If only I could train the husband as easily as the dog.

[emmas_mom]

We were away this week and sharing a small cabin with a friend and her two not-at-all-trained and very barky poms, so trying to practice stays has been a challenge. However, I did observe that Maggie was sooooo relaxed there, and was not barking at every little sound (inside or out) like she does here at home. Plus we had tons of training time alone on a nearly empty beautiful beach, so worked on recall - 'away' and 'come' on a 30' long line and then off leash too. She loved it and had a blast. We did work a bit on the 'stays with me in sight' in the context of working on recall out on the beach, and she did quite well - especially when the word was combined with a hand signal at 30-50'. Now we are home, she is back to being anxious and edgy, so tonight we start on calming and indoor stays again. (BTW, her beach recall did not transfer from that beach to our local beach - she totally blew me off this morning to chase gulls and ducks. )

[Amanda]

I have been training the new puppy very consistently. She knows her name, hand touch, leave it, and we are starting a stand/stack. Jovie is on the back burner a little bit at the moment. She is preferring to snuggle during her time alone with me so I’m letting her. Besides I am so tired and a little sick so snuggles are welcome. I am thinking we will get back to some more serious stay work this weekend.

[Jen]

I decided to train Scout stay. She has renewed her interest in bolting out the door, and Bella’s creakiness makes going in and out our slider a longer production some days.

Teaching a thirteen year old brat cat to stay is, well, challenging. I’m not sure it will happen, but her love of treats is a point in our favor. For now, we’re working on reinforcing being in her pillow when the slider is open.

[Amanda]

Checking in! How’s everybody doing with the challenge? Jovie had agility today and we got a full obstacle lead out. Working toward two. She was way more focused today in general which was fun to see! I have converted half of my garage into my training/sport Dog space and it’s so nice to have all my gear and a clean space to work each day. Hoping it leads to big things for my girls!

[emmas_mom]

Maggie isn't too focused on the learning, only on the rewards - she is a quick learner, but once she sees I have treats hidden on me she will run through every trick in the book hoping to hit on the right one and get her treat - so 'stay' becomes sit, lie down, twirl, roll over, come, away, all rolled into one. Keeping them behind my back or in a pocket doesn't work, because as soon as I've taken one out to reward her for one good stay, she KNOWS!. So I don't think we've really improved her duration, but she has revealed to me just how many tricks she must have learned at some point in her pre-adoption life!

[Amanda]

Tomorrow is our last day. If you can video your progress, please do!

We also have to pick a new challenge for June! Suggestions?

[connie]

I missed May's challenge, with all the health crises going on here; but I will join in for June. I always want to work on 'leave it' in any way, shape or form that it's offered, and I could do it with two dogs at a time, maybe. Maybe.

[SherriA]

We're doing well! Henry will stay for over a minute, though not consistently three minutes, but it's a big improvement

[emmas_mom]

My work on this challenge was a bit haphazard due to being away for part of the month and some other things. She is up to about 35 seconds in a stay with me in sight (so an improvement of 15 seconds), but the stay with me out of sight is...well....a sheltie has to find where her sheep has gone, doesn't she?

[Amanda]

We got a two obstacle lead out in agility today! It was a little shakey, but she did it! I wish I could have videod it. Great job to everyone on your training work this month!

Let’s start a new thread for leave it June!