Stay!

Now that we had the command Sit figured out, I needed Jazmine to STAY sitting when I told her to.  Jazmine learned to sit in a week, so I decided we would try to learn a new command or trick, every week.  Or longer if necessary.  So, on week 2, we started training on Stay.

We started back at the end of the hallway, with the bedroom doors closed.  I had Jazmine sit.  Then I firmly said “Stay!” and put the palm of my hand in front of her – like a stop signal.  I immediately followed up with a treat.  Then I repeated but took a step backward.  I kept repeating, taking one more step back and giving her a treat each time.  As I walked further back, she would sometimes bounce back to a standing position.  I would tell her to sit again and start over.  I did this until she could stay long enough for me to get to the end of the hallway.

Then we went into the livingroom and I would have Jazmine sit in the middle of the room, followed by a treat.  Immediately, I would follow up with saying Stay! and giving her another treat.  I had to be quick, since her attention span was short, but I would run around in a circle around her, saying “Stay!  Staaayyy….Stay!!  Stay!   Staaayyyy!”

The first couple times, I ran around her in a circle it was a disaster!  But a hilarious disaster!  Jazmine didn’t stay for long and at first, I could not complete the circle before she was bouncing back up.  As soon as she would start to bounce back up, I would start over.  Sit, stay and start to go around her….for a while, she would bounce back up when I would go behind her.  She finally learned how to turn her head and look at me while keeping her wiggle butt on the floor at the same time.  It took a couple days before I could go in a full circle around her while she actually stayed but we finally got there.

**  This was originally published 5/16/2018, but due to technical error was republished. **

Do you remember some of the cute antics your puppy did during training?  Please feel free to share your story below!