I now have sit & stay on my first request up to 30 yards & for 4 mins 100% of the time in a field near my house.

How do I start teaching my dog to stay when the dummies are being thrown?

I was planning to establish the correct behaviours in a field close to home where Baxter feels comfortable & then once he has got it re-start my 6am visits to the training grounds to transfer & establish the behaviour there.

Is this the correct way to do it?

Rgds

Michelle

Michelle, Baxter & Finley at 05:34AM on May 19, 2009

I now have sit & stay on my first request up to 30 yards & for 4 mins 100% of the time in a field near my house.

 

How do I start teaching my dog to stay when the dummies are being thrown?

 

I was planning to establish the correct behaviours in a field close to home where Baxter feels comfortable & then once he has got it re-start my 6am visits to the training grounds to transfer & establish the behaviour there.

 

Is this the correct way to do it?

 

Rgds

Michelle

Hello Michelle

With Maisy I started with holding onto her collar or ear when I threw so she knew she wasn't supposed to cart off and gave a command of "wait".  Overtime, I was able to drop it to a hand in front of her face, not physical contact but a visual restraint and now she just knows she is supposed to wait, I can just yell/growl if she does not. 

The other thing I found helped was having someone else do the dummy so if she didn't wait, they would get to the dummy before her and she was not therefore rewarded for disobeying!

I still need to crack the wretched retrieve, perhaps Maisy and Baxter can teach each other their good bits :-)  Trying to teach "hold" but I am too badly coordinated for clicker training...no wonder Maisy gets confused.

as

Hi Michelle

Congratulations on cracking the stay - all that hard work has paid off.

With Koda, I still had her on a slack lead and just dropped the dummy a couple of feet in front of her as I did so I would tell her to stay, if she went to move I would just twitch the lead enough to stop her moving.  Then I went to taking off the lead and dropping it a couple of feet away as I said stay, I would then go out and pick the dummy up and return to her side and praise and/or treat her.  I then extended the distance I would throw the dummy.  Don't do to many at a time, don't forget the praise and always end on a good one! 

I am still reinforcing this with Koda now. 

Have fun!

Another way is to sit the dog in front of you and drop the dummy behind you, so that you are inbetween the dog and the dummy.  If the dog moves, you can intercept.

Thanks for the advice.  Will give it a go & let you know how I get on.:)