Advanced Training -- Group Stays

Training with your dog should be an on-going activity. To keep it fresh and fun, introduce new challenges for you and your dog. I think one of the best ways to have fun while expanding your training is to get together with friends or fellow students from training classes, and meet once a week, once every other week, or even once a month and work on training under distractions with other dogs.

Stay exercises are a great way to teach a dog patience and self control. These are things that come hard to many dogs. Here are some ideas with a group of dogs to help them learn to stay with distractions around them. I do these types of exercises in my intermediate training class.

Exercise One -- This was done in the video. Put all dogs in a group stay side by side. The owners then instruct their dogs to say, and go out 4-6 paces. Have someone drag a toy, roll a toy, or bounce a toy between the dogs and their owners.

Exercise Two -- Put the dogs in a group stay and repeat as above. Have someone walk between the dogs and owners and tease the dogs with food.

Exercise Three -- Repeat as above, but run a dog down between the dogs and their owners.

Exercise Four -- Repeat as above with a person running, or a person riding a bike or skate board between the dogs and owners.

With the above exercises you are teaching dog good self control around toys, food, other dogs, and things moving, that they may want to chase.

What if my dog is not succeeding? Shorten the duration of the stay, and increase the distance you are between your dog and the dog next to you. If the dog next to you happens to break his stay, make sure you remind your dog it is his job to stay even if the dog next to you gets up.

Look for other training tips on this site, including similar exercises for group recalls and leash walking under distraction.

Meredith Gage

Pawsitive Experience

541-318-8459

Trainingdogs123@bendbroadband.com

http://www.pawsitiveexperience.com