I use 'wait', hubby uses 'stay' he knows what we mean but I think my wait is stronger than his stay as hubby doesn't put him back in the position if he breaks it. But I tend to use wait too much I find myself saying wait before Homer eats his food I think this should be a 'leave'? At our dog training we've discussed that stay means stay until I come back to you, wait is wait until told otherwise. But I find myself just using 'wait'. To add to complexity, for stay you step away with your right leg and wait step away with the left, or the other way round I can never remember.
If we step with our left foot, it means 'come with me'. If we step with our right foot, it means 'don't come with me'
I think that makes sense if you think about it in terms of the leg closest to the dog (so easier for them to see) means they come with you.
I use wait to wait for something like dinner or me to put my shoes on when I'm staying there and stay to not come with me, like if I'm going out the door or upstairs. Of course it works every time
I don't train any of the 2 commands tbh. I just don't see the point in giving a sit and wait command since sit(or down or whatever command you give) should mean "sit until i tell you to do something different" so why train a wait or stay command?
Good question. Lots of our 'sits' are momentary, like just before going through a door. But some are longer, like waiting in line at the checkout so it's good if the dog knows what to expect with a 'wait' command, it means they are less 'wired' for the next command - they know it's going to be soon but not immediate. A quick 'sit and move on' or a longer 'sit and wait' or a 'down' 'stay' which means 'stay and go to sleep if you want, I may be a while' helps us to have relaxed, hard working dogs.
Good point! Since we do a lot of dummy and hunting work with Odin i want him to be "wired" when he is in a sit so he is always ready to mark a dummy or a bird and when i put him in a down it usually means a longer wait for him anyway so he just relaxes when i give him a down command. Thats why we don't need a wait command. I understand that if you do therapy or guide dog work you might need those commands.
Yes, that's the first explanation that makes sense to me - although I use my "settle" cue in place of the down-stay to let the dog know that it's time to chill out. I think, too, if you were wanting an obedience-type down, it still makes sense to separate it into a completely different cue, because "down" means a neat "down", not with the hip over to the side. I think a separate cue for the "down" in this instance (ie "settle") makes more sense than a "down-stay" vs "down-wait". But that's probably just me
We used to have a "wait" meaning literally wait a few secs...OH uses this in agility. I started of with a stay..those cues then got a bit mixed up so we started again from scratch. We went to a "sit until I release you" well that didn't do it for Benson either although we have made some progress. He is generalising, I think, and any cue in the sit position to mean, only for a short time. Really frustrating. Saying that he has a very good settle cue, and understands that this means we are going to "hang out here for a bit...".
