The catchy title was supposed to be a play on "There is no Dana, only Zuul" from Ghostbusters... in case you didn't catch it...
However, the point of today's story is the fact that the "Stay" command is really a useless command and actually can depreciate your other commands in a few ways... I'll explain.
When I tell my dog to sit, it should be implied that my dog is to remain in a 'sit' until told to do something else, or until released. So, in that case, why would I have to tell my dog to stay when they already know they are supposed to remain seated anyway.
So let's say you're using the "Sit" and "Stay" commands to get your dog to remain seated. Then you tell your dog to sit and you walk away, is the dog supposed to walk with you, or is the dog supposed to remain seated. The last thing you told them was to sit, so they should stay in a sit, but since you didn't tell them to stay, now they may be confused about what you are asking.
So essentially, this is really just comlicating matters. Dog training can already a somewhat confusing process for us as the "dumb-end of the leash" (the human end), but we need to keep things simple for our dogs to learn what is expected of them. Wouldn't it just be easier to just say "Sit," and expect your dog to just sit, and stay sitting until told otherwise?
The same concept should be applied to "Down" and even "Heel." I am planning to discuss Heel a bit more in the next blog post, so if you're struggling with leash walking and heeling, stay tuned for some free advice on heeling. If you're still unsure what Heeling is... don't worry, you're not alone. There will be a post about that as well!
Comments