What's the difference between Wait and Stay?  Wait is short for wait, and pay attention; I'm going to ask you to do something.  STAY means: “hold your position, but relax, I'll return & tell you when you can move”. WAIT is usually a short duration of time - 2-or3 minutes at most.

The stay command is longer ie. “stand – stay”  5 minutes, “sit – stay” 15 minutes & “down – stay” 30 minutes. With a lot of training your dog should hold a stay even though you are out of their sight.

To teach your dog the stay command, have your dog in heel position (sitting on your left hand side beside you, facing in the same direction you are looking); use your left hand, palm facing the dog’s face, fingers pointed towards the ground, command the dog to “stay”. Step directly in front of the dog, facing him/her; step back to the heel position & if the dog is still sitting & hasn’t moved, say “okay” (the release word that tells your dog it’s okay to move). Take a step backwards as you reward with praise petting or food. The idea is to teach your dog on a “stay” never to move forward. If the dog move’s at any point say “wrong” & replace the dog back in a sit & start over.

Repeat the sit-stay in the same spot 2 or 3 times, then move to a different spot & repeat 2 or 3 times always rewarding each time. The sit-stay should only last 3 to 5 seconds in the beginning, slowly leading up to the goal of 15 minutes.  If you find you're always correcting, you've gone too far/too fast. The dog should be being rewarded more often than not.

As your dog improves at STAYING, slowly start to increase your distance from your dog, a step at a time. Increase the time the dog must hold the stay from 5 to 10 seconds; work slowly adding time and/or distance one at a time.  Once the dog understands the sit-stay you can begin to teach the down-stay; start at the beginning & go slowly as dogs do not generalise well thus making it is a new exercise for them to learn.  Always say the stay command once, don’t keep repeating the command “stay, stay, stay.....!”

The last point to remember, if you left your dog in a sit-stay & the dog lies down, it is NOT okay, it is wrong even if most people are happy with the fact that the dog is at least staying! Tell your dog “wrong” & then reposition the dog back into the sit position, tell him to stay. Good luck and "May your Dog(s) STAY wherever you tell them to!" Jean