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Your dog’s obedience reliability is going to be limited by three primary factors: duration, distance, and distractions.

Duration refers to how long an obedience exercise lasts. The shorter the duration, the easier it will be for your dog. At the outset, you should ask for quick position changes between sit, down and stand. Praise and offer a food reward for rapid responses. Then, start adding a delay between your praise, which you should give as soon as your dog complies, and the subsequent food reward. Only give the food reward if your dog remains in the desired position for the delay. This is the first step in teaching your dog to remain in position, or “stay”. If you ask your dog to Sit, and then delay the food reward for one-second after they Sit, they will have performed a one-second Sit-Stay.

Next time, try for two seconds, then three seconds. Count out the seconds as praise: “Good dog 1, good dog 2, good dog 3,” to keep your dog’s attention before asking them to change to the next position.  Keep randomizing the order of the positions and progressively increase the length of stay in each position. Keep track of their longest stays in each position and anytime they break their personal record, give them an extra-special reward!

If your dog ever looks away from you, immediately repeat the position command to get them focused on you again so you can resume counting. If your dog breaks their stay by leaving the desired position before the reward, immediately repeat the position command. If, for example, your dog breaks a Sit-Stay, tell them "oh no, now we need to start again!" and then "Sit!" and then start counting again from “Good dog 1, good dog 2” and so on.

 

Distance refers to the amount of space between you and your dog.  Your dog is more likely to listen to you and comply with your instructions the closer you are to them. You can test this for yourself now. First, ask your dog to sit five times in a row when they are standing right next to you. Then repeat this exercise with your dog just two yards away. For each set, count the number of times you have to say “Sit” before your dog complies. For many dogs, all it takes is a few feet for reliability to plummet. 

If your dog’s reliability drops with distance, you need to build up their distance reliability one step at a time. First, check that your dog normally sits following a single verbal command when right next to you. Then, move one yard away and ask your dog to "Sit." If they don’t sit, give a hand signal. Still no sit? Then quickly walk up to your dog repeating the word “Sit”, “Sit” followed by a hand signal each time.

Then go back to standing one yard away from your dog and repeat this exercise over and over until your dog sits after one command at a distance of one yard without you moving any closer. Once your dog reliably responds from one yard away, try the exercise from two yards, then three, then five, then ten. 

See how far you can go.

You can also try getting your dog to switch positions while they remain at a distance, as well as trying random sequences of sit-stays, down-stays, and stand-stays, progressively increasing in duration and at progressively larger distances.

 

Distractions refer to the other stimuli in the environment. The more distractions and the more exciting those distractions are, the harder it will be for your dog to pay attention to you. So, build up your dog's capacity to ignore distractions in the same way that you built their capacity for distance and duration: a little bit at a time.

Start training in a non-distracting environment like your kitchen or living room. Then try other rooms in your house and then the back yard, the front yard and on-leash in-front of your house. Most new environments will be exciting at first, but every environment gets less exciting as you spend more time there and your dog gets more accustomed to the stimuli that are present.

Rather than confronting distractions for the first time in the real world, you might try bringing the distractions to your home, where you have control over them. Invite some of your friends, or your dog’s friends, and have a dog training party with music. Ask people to wear costumes (hats, sunglasses, and masks can be very distracting) and carry unusual objects (walking sticks, umbrellas, and sporting equipment can also make it difficult for dogs to focus).

Practice your emergency sit-stay and focus before your dog greets each person and at least every minute or so during the party. Hand-feed your dog’s entire daily allotment of kibble as training rewards.

Once you do venture out into the world at large, try to find a place to sit down for 15 minutes or so and let your dog watch the world go by and take it all in. When you walk your dog, the immediate environment is changing every second and its just too much for some dogs to take in.

First, find a quiet place to sit and practice position changes and stays. If your dog is unfazed and responds to your commands, find a place that’s a little more active. If your dog is too stressed or excited and you lose control, move to a quieter place.

The key to success is to give your dog plenty of time to observe and get comfortable before gradually increasing the intensity of distracting stimuli. You want to challenge your dog, but not so much that you can't get them to succeed after a little extra effort. 

The goal is to get your dog to immediately obey a single verbal command, and the best place to practice is where they only succeed at that goal once every three trials, but you can quickly get them to comply by resorting to a hand-signal.

Initially, it can be helpful to work on duration, distance and distractions separately, but soon, you'll want to start practicing all three of them together, asking your dog to do longer stays during a walk, or near a park. Eventually, you’ll be ready to practice lengthy obedience routines while at a great distance inside a very distracting dog park.