Hi. My name's Stan Rawlinson, I'm a dog behaviorist and obedience trainer. This is Kai, he's a white German Shepherd. He's a rescue dog; he's been with me about five or six years now. What I'm going to teach today is the sit/stay. The sit/stay is so important not only for recall, but for nearly everything that you do with the dog. If you don't want it to do and go into something, then the sit/stay is vital. Someone comes to the door, you don't want it running to the person and jumping all over them. So, the sit/stay is really important, but it's also vital to recall.

Now, to aid me on recall and the sit/stay, I'm going to bring in something that I designed and developed called, "The Jingler." The Jingler basically teaches the dog to do almost anything in a far faster time than it would normally happen in. So, instead of being an hour or a day to teach something, we're talking about minutes. Basically, you're taking the adverts - if you want to put it that way - out of the film when you're watching it on TV. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to clip it onto the lead. In fact, one of my leads which is 5' 8" long and it's that length for a reason, there's a specific clip for it there. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach Kai that he can't move. I'm going to put super glue on his bum.

Effectively, what I'm going to do, I'm going to let the lead go slack and I'm going to go, "Stay. Stay. Stay." I'm then going to move and pull the lead. If he moves, I'll go, "Stay." The jingle and me saying, "Stay," reinforces the command. So, it's, "Stay. Stay. Stay."

After a couple of days, you just have to have one finger and go like that, "Stay," once. But, for two days, it's, "Stay. Stay. Stay. " Like all big dogs he'll want to lay down, "Stay. Stay." I'm going to pull on the lead again. If he moves, remember, I'll go, "Stay." If he doesn't, I'm going to go pull on the lead quite hard and he's pulling backwards, he's fighting against it. I'm going to go back and go, "Good. Take it." "Good" being the same as a click, but this time I don't want a clicker. I'm going to use a target word and take it as permission for him to share my treat. So, "Stay. Stay. Stay. "

Once again, I'm going to pull on the lead quite hard. If he doesn't move, I'm going to go back and go, "Good." Take it. Good dog. Now, I'm going to pull all that together to show you how you can get him to sit and stay even when you walk away. So, here we go. "Stay. Stay. Stay. " I'm going to drop the lead and I'm going to point to him and say, "Stay." I'm now going to walk at the other end of the garden. What happened there is he moved when he shouldn't have. So, I'm going to repeat that again, and as I do so, I'm going to reinforce, "Sit. Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay." I'm going to reinforce it again and say, "Stay. "

Now, I'm going to walk down the garden again. This time he will stay as I reinforced it that way. I'm going to go right down to the end of the garden, I'm going to turn around, I'm going to point to him and say, "Stay. " I'm then going to go back, not making a lot of eye contact because if I make a lot of eye contact, he'll get up and come towards me. That's not what I want him to do. When I reach him, I'm going to go, "Good! Take it. Good. Take it."

Once again, I'm going to say, "Stay. Stay." I'll turn again, go back. I will increase the distance over a period of time until I get to 100 yards. Once I've got there, I know that the dog is then rock solid. I can then start calling him and I'll always use a whistle. The type of whistle I use is an Acme whistle. They're what really old-gun dog trainers use and I'm an ex gun-dog trainer anyway. So, what I'm going to do, normally this takes a few days to get to the level of 100 yards before you start introducing the whistle as well, but I'm going to introduce the whistle now just to show you how to get him to come. "Good! Take it. Yeah, good dog." Treat the dog for the recall. Do not get the dog to come back and sit, okay?

The reason being is you're not treating it for the recall, you're treating it for the sit. So, if you get it to come back and then tell it to go sit, it thinks you're treating it for sitting. You want to treat it for the recall. So, the sit/stay is really important to aid recall and a number of other things as well. Get it right at an early stage and you will not have problems later on in life with your dog and recall. .