Well it’s been awhile but i hope to stay back on the blog bandwagon!!!

Raina

This week’s terrific tip Tuesday is all about how to proof your stay.

REMEMBER you must train on THE DOG”S schedule not your own!! Just because your 9 month old pup has performed a down stay in your living room for 20 minutes while watching american idol doesn’t mean he can do a 30 second down stay in your local park. Do not put expectations on your dog that he cannot fulfill or else you are setting up to damage your relationship and happiness in working with you.

First make sure you change only ONE VARIABLE AT A TIME. Some of the biggest variables you have to change to proof your stay

Distance

Distraction

Length

Environment

Lets stick with those 4 for now. First off change your environment, do the back deck instead of the living room but make sure all you change is the environment and set your other requirements low. In other words make it a 10 second stay in a new environment instead of that 2 minute stay in the living room you had worked up to. Slowly work up to the two minutes in the new environment making sure you only move according to the dogs schedule IE what he is successful at 4 out of 5 times before you raise the criteria!!!

As you can see in the example above once he is fine in the new environment at 10 seconds you can start to change the length or “raise your criteria” in other ways for the stay. Take note however you are always working on only ONE thing at a time. Lets say in that session he has mastered a minute long down stay on the back deck (new environment) now take 2 steps away from him instead of standing right next to him  (get it????)

Your options in proofing are endless but take baby steps and make sure you are never raising criteria to high to quick. If you notice he breaks the stay more than once in a set of 5 back down the variable you were working on, stop bouncing the ball, or taking 15 steps away.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to email me if there is a specific thing you would like to see our Tuesday blog post on! EliteInstinctCanine@gmail.com