When I was about 14, I took my first dog to an obedience class. My dog Rufus was extremely eager to please and did great in class. I learned how to tell Rufus to sit, down, and stay, but there was always a nagging problem in the back of my mind. After you tell a dog to sit, is he supposed to sit forever? At the class, it wasn’t really clear when you use stay vs. sit. What duration counts as a stay? Shouldn’t the dog always stay where he is when you say sit?
Even back then I thought it seemed like a bad idea for the dog to decide when to stop sitting, but I didn’t know why or really what to do about it. Of course, Rufus was no dummy. He knew what sit meant and over time, the amount of time his rear was on the ground after he heard the command grew shorter and shorter. He figured half a nano-second was long enough to qualify as a perfectly good sit.
When I didn’t know then is that as the leader of your canine pack, you should be the one deciding the answers to big questions like when the dog should stop sitting. Leaders make decisions; followers obey them. It may sound rigid from a human perspective, but dogs love knowing what to expect from their pack members. A fair and responsible leader is every dog’s dream human.
Unfortunately, when I was 14, I wasn’t a great owner, and outside of class, Rufus’ behavior wasn’t exactly award-winning. At home, he was an extremely high energy dog that was a gigantic pain to live with. Everyone in our family spent a lot of time saying "sit." Rufus would sit for his nano-second and then we’d tell him to sit again. He had us figured out — make a complete nuisance of yourself and the humans will pay attention to you and say "sit" a lot.
By the time I got my next high-energy dog, I was smart enough to ask more questions. After attending one dreadful obedience class, where I was told I’d never be able to "do" anything with my dog, I found other trainers and did some learning on my own. (A word to the wise: if a dog trainer ever makes you feel terrible, find a new trainer.)
I learned that one way to remain in charge of canine situations is to use a "release word." Basically, in addition to using the standard obedience commands, you use a word as a cue for the dog to stop doing whatever command you said earlier. In our case, we opted for "okay" as our release word. (Some people use "free," which in retrospect is probably a better choice, since unfortunately, the word "okay" comes up a lot in conversation.)
In any case, at our house, if I say "Tika, sit," our dog Tika should sit until I say "okay." As you’re teaching the command, you basically just extend the time that the dog sits before you use the release word.
Using a release word essentially eliminates the need for the command stay, which as I suggested earlier can be sort of an abstract concept. After all, if you’re wondering how long "stay" means, what do you think your dog gets out of it?