Reprinted with permission from http://www.PositivePetzine.com [1] 

 "300 Peck" was a method that came from training pigeons to peck 300
times in the lab, via horse-training and was adapted successfully for
dog training by a few people. My favourite variation comes courtesy of
Sue Ailsby (http://www.dragonflyllama.com [2]).

What is "300 Peck" used for?

When we want to increase distance or duration, we need to find a way to
increase distance or duration while still setting our dogs up to
succeed at least 80% of the time.

Let's say we want our dog to "sit-stay" for 30 seconds. If we asked
our dog to "sit" for 30 seconds without any prior training, then he
would almost certainly fail within about 2 seconds and we would have
nothing to reinforce. Nothing would be learned except that "stay" is
meaningless.

Another example might be sending our dog around a pole 10' away. If we
sent our dog around the pole 10' away with no prior training, chances
are our dog would either sit there with a blank expression, or find
something else to do.

"300 Peck" helps us bridge those gaps in a manner which is easy for us
to implement.