Day 6 -- Distance

I love when practice pays off! We've been working hard on attention during high distractions and it paid off well when we went to Green Dog. Going into a pet supply store where there are good food smells, toys, new people, and dogs is very, very distracting for a dog. But he did great!

We talked very briefly about stays. We don't expect a lot of them at this age but we're just teaching them the basics and teaching them some self-control. Stay means to stay in the position you've asked them to be in (sit, down, etc.). So far we've worked on duration (how much time he can maintain his stay) in a low distraction environment while I am right next to him rewarding him periodically. We started out rewarding one right after the other to keep him in the position but now we can reward him every 15 to 20 seconds. Our sessions are short to keep him successful. I might have him do a stay for a couple of minutes, release him, and do another stay for a couple of minutes. Once he gets a little better at it, I can start to incorporate it more into daily living (i.e. while preparing food in the kitchen, while watching tv, etc.).

When we start to work on distance, we go very slowly. I'm not going to walk clear across the room the first time I try. Instead, I'm going to hold a treat right to his nose as I move one foot. Once he starts to get the idea, I can take one step away and return to him to reward him.

I'm careful not to walk away and hang out there far away from him. He's not quite ready for that yet. So I just walk away and return to him right away to reward him. If he starts to break, I can start to move towards him, lean in, and say in a calm but firm voice, "No, stay" and praise him when he complies. If he is breaking, you might be going too far away. Building strong foundations of each component will insure a much more solid stay as an adult dog.

We work on sit stays too. Down stays tend to be easier for dogs because they are not already up and close to moving in a down so I tend to start out with downs.

And breaks in between to play.

We can start to ask for basic obedience while he's playing too so he learns a good on/off switch. We want him to be ready to work at a moments notice so rewarding him for complying during play teaches him that it pays off for him to respond quickly.

And then, of course, part of the reward is getting to go back to play again. We really want him to learn that it's worth his while to listen to our requests.

He's usually very happy to comply!