The ever useful "down-stay"

Langley has learned the cue "down" so well that he will be trotting across the room and if I say "Langley, down" he'll belly flop mid stride into a down.  I decided that the next step to teach him is a "stay".  The trick to teaching a good stay is not to expect too long of a stay too soon.  If you do it will be frustrating for both the dog and the trainer since the dog only has so much impulse control in the beginning. That's part of the lesson he's learning - that doing what you've asked, even though it isn't at all what he wants to do can lead to pretty great things - be it treats, praise, or getting a favorite toy.  If you start with a short little stay that you know he can accomplish - a couple seconds even - then you have set him up for success and everyone wins.  The stay can then be lengthened slowly over time.

Since Langley struggles with impulse control, we had to start with a reeeeeeeally short stay - about 2-3 seconds.  Now he's pretty reliable up to 15 seconds.  We'll keep working on it until we can do a pretty long stay. We also will practice him holding a stay while I move around or even when I move out of his line of sight. This isn't the best video since I was so focused on Langley that I wasn't paying attention to the filming but you get the idea.  Mr. Langley has now added a "down-stay" to his repertoire.

All this training isn't just to teach him basic manners  and how to live the life of a house dog.  The most important lesson that I want Langley to learn from all this work is that humans are worth listening to and when things get scary, turning to them for help instead of reacting to his fear is a great option.  It will take awhile but hopefully we'll get there.