Long Stays

Stays are not my strong point. I can teach dogs to stay throughout distractions. But staying forever is not as fun. Boring boring repetitive duration.

We have been focusing on duration stays but intermixing a lot of distraction staying.

Griffin can now stay:
- While some types of items are dropped/picked up next to him
- While a small child sits next to him, handwaves at him wildly, or runs in circles around him.
- While I do any or all of those things
- While I go 25+ steps away
- While I throw things away or towards him
- While I gently poke him....

I'm never sure on how to best test our duration as I don't want to push him to getting up but if I never increase criteria....we won't get there either.

Today I learned he can do a 1 min sit stay and a 1.5 minute down stay. Probably longer on both.

But, for the first time, today I could look at him and Know he would stay. Most days I look at him and can tell you that he is staying. But today he was not getting up. He was planted in spot, relaxed, and slightly annoyed at having to stay put. But he was going nowhere.

I think we've made progress!