Waiting is a skill that encompasses the other two golden skills. Attention is required to train a reliable wait effectively, and targeting is often used to teach a highly useful form of waiting, the “wait at station” behavior. This behavior involves your puppy learning to wait on a target until you give it more information. Waiting also plays an integral part in taking treats gently, waiting for cues, settling on a mat, and more. If your puppy can wait for something, you will find other training and everyday life situations much easier to navigate.
What is Waiting?
What is waiting? As with attention, this question might seem like an odd question. We, humans, understand the concept of waiting. However, in dog training, we need to be specific. You need to know exactly what you want your puppy to do while waiting. This need means you must make sure you clearly understand what waiting is and what your puppy should be doing when you ask it to wait. Waiting is the act of your puppy holding a predetermined position until you give it a new cue or release it from the wait. Please note this is different from a stay. A stay is simply holding a position until released. What is the difference? The difference is in the anticipation.
Waiting is something your dog will be asked to do when you are going to work with it. In other words, your dog will hold an “active wait.” In other words, it is holding a position but is in work mode and knows that you will be giving it instructions. I also sometimes refer to this as a “listening wait.” In short, when waiting, your puppy is listening and anticipating another cue. Staying is something your puppy is asked to do when you are not working with your puppy, and don’t expect more than a simple “stop moving” situation. Put simply, wait means “hold position and wait for further instructions,” and stay means “stop moving until I tell say you can move again.” (Fun note: stay is a prerequisite to an emergency stop).
Two Kinds of Waiting
You would benefit from teaching your puppy two kinds of waiting: waiting at station and waiting for you to give them treats. Waiting at station means that you have a cue that tells your puppy that it needs to put its paws in a specific location and wait there until it is given another cue or released from the station. The training for this behavior is often done with a mat, bed, towel, or platform. I prefer a platform as it is more distinct from the surrounding areas and other places in your puppy’s environment. A good option for this is a raised bed. However, a mat or towel can work well too. Your puppy waiting for you to come to it to deliver treats helps it learn to take treats gently. For some puppies, this is often learned in training sessions simply because their puppy quickly learns that if it holds a position, it gets more treats. However, it is important that they learn this same skill outside of training sessions, as it teaches them patience.
Tips for Training Waiting
Tip #1 – Don’t overdo it. When you teach your puppy to wait, don’t ask it to wait for very long. This training is not a competition; it is a learning experience. Start very small, then gradually get longer and longer. However, it is important that you don’t make your puppy wait for everything all the time, as this can produce unnecessary frustration.
Tip #2 – Practice this in many locations. One of the most common problems with waiting is that puppies will break the wait in response to a distraction. Make sure to “proof” this behavior and train your puppy to hold position even in the face of distractions.
Tip #3 – Change up when and how long you ask your puppy to wait for things. This varied length of time will help your puppy learn to actually wait, instead of waiting for three seconds, then breaking the wait and jumping on you.
Waiting is one of the most challenging golden skills to teach and often takes the most time and effort. But it is a skill that you will find extremely helpful in daily life and could save your puppy’s life! If you want help learning how to teach your puppy to wait, schedule a lesson here!
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