Last few training sessions at club Lawson has been wonderful ( if only the guy with the Mal will stop coming up behind us with his dog ) the last two sessions he has decided that the commands of STAY or WAIT mean come and sook up to me. I am sure he knows what he should be doing, he has done it for quite some time now. I have not increased my distance from him, infact for drop/stay I am still beside him and for sit/stay and stand/stay,in front of him. No pressure, no stress. This week we trained in the rain and I put it down to the conditions but the week before he started going off and during the week also. At home, he is perfect, will stay and watches me intently. When he breaks the stay,he skulks about my legs and I just know, he knows WHAT HE SHOULD be doing. I have had my ACDs break stays before but could be heavy handed with them and a few good "NO"s would do it. But I know Koolies are diverse and can just become shell shocked by something I might do to stop him moving off. Patting him and reassuring him is working, but only whilst I still have physical contact with him, move my hand from him, still praising him in the same tone and he moves off the mark. Food works until he guts it all from my hand or figures I'm not going to give it until he's stayed for a while. I'm not even sure it's an insecurity issue for him, given he was doing them fine a while ago. Nothing adverse has happened to him on a stay as I am close to him. He is not bored as we do lots of fast heeling with drops, sits and turns just before the instructor says stays are after the next lot of exercises. Or we play tug ot retrieve. Suggestions???

I have 2 here the same, although they are in very early training (3wks & 1wk). I take the approach that stay means stay (if they know what it means) & just be persistant with them & use voice prompts for the good & bad actions.
I boy I have here would go to pieces about being asked to stay, flopping down & trying to crawl & simply just thinking stay meant he was in trouble for something. I used a witches hat/cone & taught him to stay with that as thats what he was asked to do & reassure him without encouranging a break of stay.

With this metod plus voice encouragement that he is doing right & reprimand the instance he moves, in 2 days I could circle him for a few minutes without him breaking. Now he understands that when I say it or give the hand signal alone I won't accept anything but stay no matter how long we stay there until he does it, but now he understands & obliges I just ask a minimal time stay rather set him up to fail until he gets confidence & mind to do longer stays.

Ignoring them coming to you, & giving off an "unhappy vibe" & immediately repeating the request works well where they do not get rewarded for breaking instead they get the feeling they have upset you, yet they get praised for staying & I don't ask them to come from stay, I go to them & wait next to them for a little while before allowing them to break & get a reward.

I don't do obedience, but I do train stunt dogs which have higher discipline requirements.

try going back to the start of stay training. put your pup in a sit with you beside him/her then take one step so that it puts you in front of your pup facing him/her wait for a couple of sec's then step back to were you started from if he has not moved treat/praise him and work slowly out from there. i hope this helps you good luck

Thanks, I got a private tution /kick in the bum from my mentors for forgetting some of the basic stuff I was taught.

Concern was really for adaptablitly of the training I know to the breed, not so much the techiques to be applied.But it has been anwered for me.

Mushoz, if you don't do obedience, how do you know that traing trick dogs require I have seen some pretty focused dogs in the obedience rings, and have been privileged to see at least two perfect scores. Which were wonderous to watch. I think any facet of working with animals takes discipline requirements to a high level for both the animal and the handler, have to ,for us to be silly enough to persue it

I don't do but have seen obedience at it's highest levels, I meant it in regards to higher discipline requirements with an individual placed into a team of dogs working together with just 1-2handlers or with crowds, other animals, film or photographic sets where they are sometimes not pre-rehursed or prepared for such like an obedience dog is by the time it gets to the highest level & the environment during the obedience trial is generally a controlled one.

I take my hat of to those that compete obedience especially with the work it takes to get to the high levels which is just great to watch, I would if I were closer.