Today we are going to be discussing the ‘wait’ cue. This cue is different from the ‘stay’ cue. When putting a dog into a ‘stay’ it means that you want the dog to stay in the same position until he is released. The ‘wait’ command is used for when you want the dog just to wait until you are ready for him.
Imagine that you want to do the laundry and you don’t want puppy to interrupt by stealing a sock. You can simply give him the ‘wait’ command. If your dog is in the car and you don’t want him jumping out of the car – use the ‘wait’ command. If you want puppy to wait in a room while you mop – use the ‘wait’ command. So puppy learns that he must wait until he is released.
The way the ‘wait’ command works is this. With your arm draw an imaginary line in front of your dog. Puppy is not allowed to cross the line until he is released.
How do we do this? Grab some yummy treats. Place him on a lead. Take him to an obvious boundary area, for example, where a carpeted area meets a tiled area. Take him to the room that you want him to remain in. Draw an imaginary line, and tell him to wait. Stand to the side of him and release him immediately using your release word and luring him with a treat out of the room. So, we want puppy to understand that the release cue means that he can move out of the room.
If your dog tries to break the ‘wait’, simply stop him with the lead or stand in front of him. It is simply communicating to him that you want him to wait until you release him. Only then can he leave the area. Repeat this several times over several days.
Once he is reliably doing this at a rate of around 80%, introduce the 4 D’s – distance, distraction, difficulty, duration. So, generalise the situation and try it in different locations around the house. Have fun with it. Don’t forget, it is not a ‘stay’ so it doesn’t need to be formal or polished. Puppy can explore, play, or sleep in the space but he can’t leave until he is given the release word.
This behaviour has no limits and you find it comes in handy for most situations.
