7 Easy Steps For Effective Dog Training

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Teaching your dog to stay in one place can be helpful in a variety of situations. If another animal or person wanders into your yard, then you don’t want your pooch to start a chase! More difficult than teaching your dog to sit, teaching your dog to stay can take some time. Do not expect your dog to be trained overnight. It may take days, weeks, or months, but he will learn. Obedience training is necessary for dogs of all ages.
Step 1:

Grab the treats. Treats are the perfect incentive to get your dog trained for any behavior.

Use healthy treats, since your pet will be consuming numerous treats during training. Keep the treats small. You don’t want your pooch to fill up on snacks and refuse to obey.

Step 2:

Find a quiet area. You need to be paying full attention to your pooch, and he needs to be paying attention to you.

Find a quiet room in the house that is free of distractions. Ask the other family members not to bother you during this process. If you take your dog outside, try to find a place that is out of view from a busy street or park; these only add to the distractions.

Step 3:

Keep the treats out of view. When you are teaching your dog to sit, you let him smell the treats. The “stay” command is a bit more difficult, and a visible treat is tempting to follow. Keep the treats in your pocket, or keep the treats in one hand, and place the hand behind your back. You should always have quick access to the treats.

Step 4:

Start with “sit”. Teaching your dog to stay will be much easier if he already knows how to sit on command. You can still teach a dog that doesn’t know how to sit, but it will be much more difficult. These instructions are for a dog that is already trained to sit. For the sake of consuming too many treats, it’s better if you have already winged your dog to sit without the reward of treats.

Place your dog in the sitting position a couple of times for a warm-up.

Step 5:

Use hand movements and firm commands. Once your dog is in the sitting position, place your hand (palm up facing your dog) a few of inches in front of his face.

Say “stay” in a firm tone. Your dog will find meaning in your tone of voice and body movement, not necessarily the word.

In the beginning, you should neither expect your dog to stay in place nor expect him to hold the position for long. Never get angry with your pet while training. Remember, it may take some time, but he will learn.

If he stays still, even for only a couple of seconds, then say “good dog” and give him a treat. If he doesn’t stay still, then return him to the sit position and start over.

Always reward your dog for his good behavior, even if it isn’t what is completely desired of him at first.

Step 6:

Increase the distance. After he has successfully sat still after a few tries, then say “stay” and take one step back, while continuing to hold your palm near his face. Say “good dog” and give him a treat.

Continue increasing the distance as your dog begins to understand what you want from him.

Step 7:

Dismiss hand movements. Once your pooch gets the hang of things, then you can stop using the hand movements.

Replace the hand movements with the vocal command. Continue to reward your dog with treats until he is an expert at the “stay” command.

Repeat: This process will need to be repeated several times every day until she learns. When you think that your dog understands the process, you can remove treats from the picture. In the place of treats, reward your dog with a pat on the head when you say “good dog.” When your dog gets to the point where she will stay for long periods of time, you will need to teach her a release command. Teach your dog that “okay” in a firm voice means she can release the position.
About this Author:

Article written by Shelly Seigler. Find Elite pet products at low prices with Discount Pet Mall. Shop Uniquely for  dog training collars, electric dog fences, & bark collars


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Comments

This is a very good article. We started training our dog with hand signals and having to sit while visitors are at the house. She would then get a treat if she behaved. That translated then to being outside very easily. I've even been able to stop her with a hand signal from coming back into the house if I need to wipe off mud, etc. Thanks for some additional pointers.

Marion Cornett's picture
By Marion Cornett 15 weeks 2 days