I am often asked whether or not to use the command 'stay' when training dogs. In my experience, there are different schools of thought on this topic.

I believe that there is a difference between using the command and not using it, similar to the difference between driving a manual and automatic car

Tune in to my podcast to discover the difference it can make in your dog's behavior.

If you are looking for a way to get your dog to behave at home, look no further. Click the link below to check out my training on Daily Life Skills - https://www.matadork9.com/dailylifeskills

00;00;01;08 - 00;00;32;01
Michael J. Accetta
Welcome. My name is Michael, etc.. I'm the founder of Matador Canine Brilliance and author of The Dog Training Chico's. You're listening to the Acknowledge Dogs Podcast To my professors in college had very different opinions on telling dogs stay or not to say the word stay. We even joked about making T-shirts about it where we would say, I believe in stay where I don't believe in stay.

00;00;32;15 - 00;00;50;21
Michael J. Accetta
So which is the correct school of thought? Should we be telling our dogs stay after we tell them to do something right as they stay or should sit just by itself? Tell my dog what they're doing should be continued until I tell them to do something else. Well, I'll give you my quick answer. I prefer not to say the word stay.

00;00;51;11 - 00;01;07;10
Michael J. Accetta
That may be so. I understand why people say stay and why people don't say stay. So I'm going to show you both sides of it today. We're going to discuss why it would be important to say the word stay. Maybe change to not saying the word stay or stay with saying a word stay. How many times can I say the word stay?

00;01;07;10 - 00;01;25;18
Michael J. Accetta
At any given moment, right. So we're going to go over whether you should be saying stay to your dog or not. Number one, the first thing you have to understand that there is a difference between saying the word stay and not saying it. And I want you to think about that as the difference between a manual car and an automatic car.

00;01;26;06 - 00;01;40;20
Michael J. Accetta
We're going to get more in-depth about this as we talk about stay. So stay tuned because although that might seem confusing, like, okay, yeah, I understand Emanuel and I are staying in automatic, but how the hell does that apply to dog training? And telling our dog a steak? Stay tuned. I'm going to go over it. First things first.

00;01;40;20 - 00;02;01;03
Michael J. Accetta
If you're already saying the word stay, it would probably behoove you to continue using it. At least for a little while, unless you fully understand the concept of teaching your dog something new. If you don't fully understand that concept, trying to teach them something new at this point, by completely demolishing everything you've worked on is not going to be beneficial to you or your dog.

00;02;02;15 - 00;02;22;16
Michael J. Accetta
Instead, keep doing what you're doing and eventually change it. Maybe on the next behavior teaching. So if you're saying sit, stay, you're not going to just completely forego that because you're essentially starting all over with the word sit. I'll explain that in a minute. If we're now teaching our dog down, stay. Maybe we only teach them the word down instead of down.

00;02;22;16 - 00;02;46;14
Michael J. Accetta
Stay. Understand? Right. So it's a little different. If I'm already using the word stay, I might as well continue using it. It's what my dog is accustomed to. It's what they're used to. And if I change it, they're going to get slightly confused. Now, the reason they get confused and this is one of the pitfalls and people say, well, you shouldn't be telling your dog stay is because of I say the word stay that becomes content agent on my dog staying.

00;02;47;01 - 00;03;04;26
Michael J. Accetta
If I don't say the word stay, then they can do whatever they want. Okay. We break that down a little bit. If I say sit, stay and my dog stays for 3 minutes, it's only because I said the word stay because that's what they're used to, as opposed to me saying sit and then my dog doing whatever they want in 30 seconds.

00;03;05;08 - 00;03;24;26
Michael J. Accetta
See, the difference is not a huge difference, but it can make the difference if you want what's called an implied stay. That's not saying the word stay. When I say sit, it's implied. They should continue to do the behavior for an extended period of time without me having to say or do anything else. I've already told them to sit.

00;03;25;02 - 00;03;47;09
Michael J. Accetta
They should continue to sit until I tell them to do something else. Here's the big difference between saying stay and not saying stay. And this is what you need to discern for yourself. Do you want to have manual or automatic? Do you want to have an automatic stay that when you say behavior, your order, your dog automatically does the stay or do you want to have to manually tell them to stay?

00;03;47;12 - 00;04;03;01
Michael J. Accetta
It's like putting your car park. Would you rather have a handbrake? You have to manually do it? Or would you rather have the car automatically put the brake on? Which would you rather do it? Because this is how the sequence is going to play out. You tell your dog to down and we're going to say, stay so down.

00;04;03;01 - 00;04;26;04
Michael J. Accetta
Stay now. I've waited a period of time and then I'm going to have to release my dog. So down, stay, release word, whatever that is for my dogs. It's okay. The alternative is down. Don't have to say stay. And then I release my dog with the word. Now, at both of those situations, there is a beginning to the behavior and an end to the behavior that is clearly defined.

00;04;26;26 - 00;04;49;04
Michael J. Accetta
The stay indicates whether a dog should continue doing it or the alternative in that dog's mind is, well, I was told to sit and I could get up whenever I want. Or I was told to down and I could get up whenever I want. I could do whatever I want because stay wasn't there I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers.

00;04;49;15 - 00;05;10;27
Michael J. Accetta
This podcast would not be possible without you Leave review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast. Now back to the show you can only really run into problems when you need your dog to stay. And you didn't say it. Emergencies, things happen. You get distracted or you just forget.

00;05;11;06 - 00;05;30;21
Michael J. Accetta
You say down, but you don't say stay and your dog gets up and does something else. Then what often happens, and I've seen a whole lot, is yell at the dog and go down. I told you to down. Why aren't you staying? Well, if we just look at the behavior of what you did, not what your dog did and what you did, you've put a dependency on the word stay for your dog.

00;05;31;06 - 00;06;07;19
Michael J. Accetta
And therefore, when you remove the word, they think everything's fine. I could get up, I could go do something else. And then they're confused when you bark at them. Happens all the time. All the time. Your consistency will determine your dog's success. Now, the only time I would say there is kind of an opportunity where you should say the word stay is if you're going to be doing a really big difference between your everyday life with your dog in competitions So if you're going to be having a regular dog, they live in your backyard, they live in your house, you don't really do much with them.

00;06;07;19 - 00;06;30;21
Michael J. Accetta
Besides competition, wise, you might have different words mean different things, sometimes even in different languages. So the casual sit might just be sit, but the perform and sit for competition might be seats, right, or down might be plots, those kinds of things. You have different words form to tell your dog that there's a different level of the behavior I want you to do.

00;06;31;19 - 00;06;51;28
Michael J. Accetta
Same thing goes for stay. So if I tell my dog down casually, they can get up when they walk because there's no competition. I don't get any points off of my dog getting up randomly. Of course, there could be dangerous situations, which is why I opt for the implied stay, the automatic stay. I don't say the word stay, but if I were say, down stay, that would be a competition version.

00;06;51;28 - 00;07;12;06
Michael J. Accetta
And they go, Oh, okay, now I need to stay here a little bit longer and kind of ingrain it in my mind. Competitions over here, real life is over here. So we're differentiating simply because we're doing competitions and we want everything to be perfect. That is not training for real life. I think training for real life, the better way to do it is an automatic, implied stay.

00;07;12;26 - 00;07;33;20
Michael J. Accetta
My dog breaks the leash. I've had this happen when I was a novice trainer. I got whatever treat leash I could get because I didn't have a lot of money. I got any leash that I could get or I made my own out of power cord, ended up breaking my dog, panicked I panicked. I said down and I forgot to say the word stay because I was so stressed about trying to figure out what I should do with my dog.

00;07;34;04 - 00;07;50;19
Michael J. Accetta
I was able to refashion the leash in an interesting kind of way. And put it on my dog so we could get home. But at the end of the day, i