stays, anyone help?

[ditavonteesed]

since cherry got reactive (she is totally fine these days although we still have to be careful) I have been training her to come to me if she is uncomfortable, her recall is perfect, heelwork not bad at all and if she sees another dog she will generally come straight to my side to be put on lead. however the down side of this is her stays have completly gone, I can still get her to stay at home and in the garden, but in class I cant get more than a few seconds. I have been trying to build it up from stratch again at home, so I have been doing it along side eric so she does the same stays as a 5 month old puppy, this has been working well, so how can I get her to stay for any length of time or out of sight?
I am going to want to retake her gold at some point and the stay was all she failed on, the class that I go to that isnt kc good cit is quite competative and I get really fed up of being the class clown sometimes.

[minimuu]

How are you teaching the stay?

[ditavonteesed]

gradulally increasing time, returning and walking round reinforcing stay and leaving again, never letting her break, so the minute I see her breaking I return to her to end the excercise.

[ditavonteesed]

oh and lots of treats (she is a terrier so wont do anything for nothing).

[minimuu]

"so the minute I see her breaking I return to her to end the excercise"

that is the bit you need to work on.

Don't get to the stage that she is breaking her stay - you must always be the one who determines when the stay ends/.

So start with just 5 secs (i know she can do more than this but you want to mak sure you end the stay with a release command) then give the release command and throw a treat away from where she is staying.

Then build up to 10 secs etc BUT always be the one to end the stay with the same release command each time.