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I need some help with my dog. I was hoping you guys could give me some tips.
I've been training stays out of sight for a couple years now and my dog wont stay,when I leave he gets up and sniffs around he even tried to leave the ring once. If anyone could give me any tips on how to fix this or train him for this better I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!

Are you taking classes and practicing group stays in class? If so, maybe you could have the instructor or someone who is watching the dog, correct your dog while your out of sight i.e. put him back in a sit and tell him to "STAY!" Or maybe you could periodically come back to him during that 3 minute sit and reward him for continuing to stay and then go back out of sight. You could also make it easier for him temporarily and not go out of sight for a 3 min sit/5min stay, practicing this in several different locations until he's solid on the

What kind of dog do you have? Are there any fun matches you could attend to practice sit/stays? Sometimes the person acting as the "judge" for the sit/stays will ask everyone ahead of time if you want them to correct your dog (if he gets up) while you are out of sight.

Finally, if you are on Facebook, I'd recommend joining the closed group "Competition Dog Obedience"... https://www.facebook.com/groups/5762103470/ There are a lot of very friendly folks there more than willing to help and offer suggestions. I'm relatively new to obedience (i.e. have only trained one dog for competitive obedience thru CDX so far...) and have found this website very helpful!

There's also another closed Facebook group with helpful folks called Ring-Tested Obedience... https://www.facebook.com/groups/169515619911670/ but the first group I mentioned is my favorite.

Between the two fb groups, I have read a lot of useful information.

Good luck!

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Last edited by Super Uber Kennels on 3/1/2015 1:58:44 AM

I'd also like to add that you're not alone on your dog leaving the ring during group exercises. My pointer ran out full speed as we were walking out for the 5 minute down once. Fortunately, I caught him on the way out and both he and I got to wait the 5 minutes around the corner from the ring.

Do you train indoors or outside? If you train outside (as we do in Australia) there is one other thing you can try - if you train indoors this won't work, unless you can find a heavy object to use instead of a stake in the ground.

Method:
Use in conjunction with returning and rewarding. Hammer a stake into the ground near your dog, and attach a short lead to this. Clip his collar to the lead. Once he seems to be accepting staying in place. Take away the stake, but leave the lead on for more training sessions.
I would not trial him until he starts getting steadier in his stays.

Thanks for the comments.
I do go to group training's and the trainer does correct the dog when they get up. I haven't tried coming back and praising him periodically, but I will. As for fun matches I don't know of any around me that will correct your dog like that. I wish they did.
Also I have a yorkie, milo, he's 12 lbs. I have tried proofing,lightly pulling the leash in different directions making sure they don't move after you say stay. And as for periods of time that I leave him I was just walking out of the room then walking right back in and gradually leaving for longer as he got more comfortable with it ,but that didn't work
I train both outside and inside

Essentially the only way to do it is to consistently catch him as soon as he gets up and correct him, combined with keeping it short enough that he doesn't get up. Each time he gets up for more than 5seconds before being corrected will have to be compensated for by at least 10 times when he doesn't.

When practicing at home this means using a mirror to spy on him and starting with going out of sight for a very short amount of time (less than 1 second), and gradually building up the time, everytime he fails (he has gotten up when you get back into the room) means going back to square one with leaving sight for less than a second.

Also once you get up to at least 30second out-of-sight stays it is really great to vary the amount of time you are gone. I like to start each training session with a 1-10second out of sight stay and end with a 30-45 second stay while having a couple full time ones in between. Also I always make sure to have practiced longer in-sight stays before attempted a long out-of-sight stay (ie. I train a 5 minute in-sight stay before trying a 1 minute out-of-sight stay).

grif,

PS a good intermediate between in-sight and out-of-sight stays is what I like to call the 'distracted handler stay' where the handler stay in sight but pretends to not be paying attention to the dog by avoiding eye contact with the dog (while actually keeping an eye on them out of the corner of your eye). Often dogs who have learned that they can 'get away with it' when the handler is out-of-sight will actually watch the handler's eyes & face and will try to cheat even if the handler is still there if they think they aren't paying attention to the dog.