How to teach your puppy to stay

The command ‘stay’ is an important control command for your puppy to learn. A dog who knows how to stay on command is a much more enjoyable companion than a dog that wants to bolt off at every opportunity. Teaching your Beaglier puppy to stay should be done after he knows how to sit. This is important as you will need your puppy to begin in the sitting position to teach him to stay. Please read the previous page about training your puppy to sit for some helpful advice before teaching your puppy to stay. 

Steps to teaching the ‘Stay’ command:

  1. Kneel down beside your puppy and get your puppy in the sitting position.
  2. Give the command “stay” and hold an outstretched hand out in front of your puppy so that the palm of your hand is facing your puppy’s nose.
  3. Slowly count to 10 in your head then reward your puppy with praise or a small treat if your puppy remained still for the time that you counted up to 10. If your puppy moves from the sitting position, quickly correct him by placing him back into the sitting position.
  4. Repeat the above step but this time extend the length of time that your puppy needs to remain seated until you count to 20 and again praise or otherwise reward your puppy.
  5. If your puppy is completing the stay successfully, continue to extend the length of time you require him to remain still until you reach about a minute or so.
  6. Move to the front of your puppy and repeat steps 1 to 5. You may need to wait until the next day’s training session before you can move to the front of your puppy to give the stay command, as often you will spend the entire first day’s session making sure that your puppy knows what you want when you give the stay command.
  7. When you are confident that your puppy will stay on command for one minute while you are in front of him, begin to increase the distance between the two of you little by little. Do not do this too quickly because you want to be able to quickly correct your puppy if he moves from the sitting position.
  8. When you can keep your puppy staying in the same spot for a minute while being at least a metre away from you then your puppy has successfully learnt how to stay on command.
  9. Keep increasing the distance between you and your puppy as well as the length of time that your puppy stays for little by little.
  10. When you are confident that your puppy now understands what “stay” means then you can test your puppy out by providing a small distraction while he is in the stay position such as another member of the family walking in between the two of you.

Tips to remember

  1. Make sure to keep the training times short in the beginning.
  2. Allow your puppy to have a quick walk around between each step
  3. Be sure to correct your puppy quickly if they are about to move out of position
  4. Make sure you are confident that your puppy will sit for the shorter time lengths while you a close to him before you give him some distance so that you can correct him quickly.