Teach Your Dog To Stay

Difficulty: Easy
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

Consider this scenario:
Company arrives, and your dog goes wild. You can't keep him away from them; sniffing, nudging, licking. If only he knew to stay when you told him, to keep a good distance between himself and your company.
You seat yourself at the dining table. The meal is laid out before you, its scent arising around you, ice cold tea poured in the glass next to the salad bowl, and beside you hangs your dog's dripping tongue and his eyes pierce you in want of the food you have yet to taste.
You tell him to get out. He does, but not allowing quite enough time to let you sip your tea, or take a bite, or say a word to your dinner guest as he unfolds a dark-red napkin onto his lap. The dog is back; you give him nothing. He trots past you and lays his large muzzle on top of the black suit pants of your guest, onto his red napkin, stares into his eyes, towards his plate, again into his eyes.
He comes and he goes, and he comes. Lock him outside on the screened-porch? He'll only bark. Loudly. You'll force him out of the room, but he won't stay even if you tell him to. He doesn't know how. You haven't trained him.

Although this command may be unnecessary, since teaching your dog to sit or lay down should keep him in that position until you give the release command, it is sometimes helpful to have a stay command for longer periods of waiting, or if you want your dog to freeze in the middle of an action.

Step 1: Have your dog sit. Click and treat.
Step 2: Say 'stay.' Wait six seconds. Say 'release' then click and treat.
Step 3: Say 'sit,' 'stay' and wait ten seconds. Say 'release' then click and treat.
Step 4: Repeat four or five times per session.
Step 5: Practice this trick in multiple sessions every day, gradually building up to several minutes before releasing.

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OUR EXPERIENCE

We don't usually use the stay command with Caspian, unless we want to emphasize that we want him to freeze and not move. We tell him to stay when we balance a treat or toy on his nose before giving him a release command to catch it. In addition to using the clicker, we would physically restrain him by holding his collar. We would gradually lessen our hold each time until he would stay on his own. We did this because Caspian gets excited really easily, and will sometimes "jump the gun" so to speak.

TEACHING TROUBLE

My dog is so impatient!
Dogs are impatient, it's true. You have him sit, you tell him to stay, but he might have other ideas. You haven't quite reached the ten second mark, and he's running towards you. He's impatient and wants a treat now. He knows that sooner or later he'll get it, and he prefers sooner.

Sometimes, it's the dog owners who are impatient. You tell your dog to stay, but he won't stay so you get frustrated. But screaming at your dog won't help. Be patient. In order for a dog to 'stay,' patience must be put to order, for both the dog and his owner. Go over the steps, and soon you're dog will get the message. Don't relent if they come begging before you reach your set time limit, and don't treat them. You might have to go back a few seconds, or even half a minute. But make sure your dog is staying still as a statue until you say 'release.'

Tip: "Make sure your dog is staying still as a statue until you say release."

Teach Your Dog To Come To You

Difficulty: Moderate
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

If you only teach your dog one thing from this book, teach him this command—it could save your dog's life. If your dog will not always come when called, he is not safe off leash. Teaching your dog to come when called is not only valuable for your dog's safety but also makes spending time with your dog more enjoyable knowing that he will not cause trouble by running away. If you teach your dog to come when called, and practice it every day, then you will build a trusting relationship with your dog.

Step 1: Load the cue instead of the clicker. Here's how:
Go up to your dog and give the command that you will use to call the dog, then treat him. For example: Say the word "here Puddles" and give him a piece of bacon. Repeat multiple times during the day and each time give different treats (bacon, chicken, kibble, tug game; but in addition to treats, always give praise).
Step 2: Go across the room and give the command. "Here Puddles!" He will come to you to get his treat. When he does, click and jackpot (give a large treat or several treats). At this point in the training go back to click treating when he comes.
Step 3: Each time your dog comes to you pet his head and loop your hand under his collar before you give the treat. This is to get your dog used to being held when he comes to you. Dogs will pull away if they think they are being cornered into something they would rather not be doing. This should be a habit for you as well as the dog.
Step 4: Try calling him from different rooms.
Step 5: Practice calling him when he is interested in something else. Vary the reward each time: sometimes a treat, sometimes just praise.

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OUR EXPERIENCE

Caspian is a really smart labradoodle, but the one thing that he used to not be good at was coming when he was called. He gets excited extremely easily and loses focus during a training session if he sees other dogs or other activity going on. Truthfully, we were simply irresponsible in teaching him such an important command. One day, after playing fetch outside in our field, he spotted a squirrel, and took off after it. We tried calling him back to us, but he was too interested in the animal he was chasing. They ran across a road at the same time a car was coming down the mountain. The driver didn't have time to stop, and hit Caspian going around 30 miles per hour. Caspian rolled for about fifty feet, knocking down a construction sign next-door. We rushed him to the emergency veterinarian, who wasn't extremely hopeful. Caspian didn't have any broken bones, but couldn't move his back legs. It was a long road to recovery, but after several days, the swelling on his spinal cord decreased, and he was able to stand for a few seconds at a time. After many months of working with him, he was able to move around like he used to, but not quite as limber. And, even today he carries scars from skidding along the pavement. That experience taught us that teaching the recall command, teaching "come," is more important than anything else we could teach our dog.

TEACHING TROUBLE

I've taught my dog "Come" before, but now he won't obey me.
We originally taught Caspian to "come" as a puppy by playing a game where several people stood in a circle taking turns calling the dog and Caspian would come to each person calling him to get a treat. Unfortunately, later we poisoned the "come" command by using it primarily to go in the house after a play time - he started to associate the command with not being able to play anymore. We decided to start over and teach him using a different command word (we used "here").

Tip: "Get your family or friends to help you out. Have someone call your dog. If he comes to that person, treat. If he comes to someone else, be still and quiet until he finds the person who called him."

Teach Your Dog To Sit

Difficulty: Easy
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

With your clicker ready, wait for your dog to sit on his own. This part of the training session is fun for dogs, it's like a game to them. They have to figure out what to do in order to get the treat. They might spin around, lay down, come up and nudge you—whatever he does, just ignore him until he sits. When he does this immediately click and treat. The first treat should be a generous one, enough to get him motivated for more.

Keep on waiting until he sits again. Whenever he sits, click and treat. By this time it is normal for a dog to get frustrated since he often can't remember why he got the treat the first time and doesn't understand why he isn't getting one now (see Teaching Trouble below).

Keep clicking and treating when he sits. Soon a light will come on in the little guy's brain: "If I sit, I'll get a treat!" He'll start doing it more. When your dog gets to this stage of the training process, start saying the word "Sit" whenever you click. This will reinforce the command with his action.

Then, tell your dog to sit—he should do it right away. As soon as he does, give him a jackpot and a good petting for a job well done.

Step 1: Wait until he sits down on his own. Click and treat.
Step 2: Repeat several times.
Step 3: Say Sit as soon as he sits. Click and treat.
Step 4: Repeat several times.
Step 5: Say Sit. If he sits, click and give him a jackpot. If he does not, return to Step 4.

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OUR EXPERIENCE

This was the very first trick we taught Caspian. We were so anxious to begin training him, we had barely gotten him home before we were clicking and treating. Our poor dog was so tired, he had been on a flight all day just to get to us, but he had enough energy to try this trick a few minutes before falling asleep. We had no trouble teaching Caspian this command. He was obediently sitting within just a few minutes.

TEACHING TROUBLE

He doesn't know what to do!
Be patient with him if he starts barking or whining. Ignore the behavior and wait. You sometimes have to be very patient when clicker training your dog. If your dog gets frustrated, wait until he sits, click and treat well, and take a break. It is better to have short productive training sessions with lots of breaks than long unfruitful sessions.

Tip: "It could take several training sessions for you to perfect a trick. Make sure you don't wear your dog out, give him plenty of breaks. Always end on a good note and you will never go wrong."

Teach Your Dog Its Name

Difficulty: Easy
Prerequisite: None
Items Needed: Clicker, Treats

After teaching your dog to respond to the clicker, you are now ready to use it to teach him many tricks and commands. Throughout the site, we demonstrate how the clicker can be used for both basic commands and more advanced tricks. If you want a well trained dog, one of the first things you need to teach is the most basic of commands: his name.

Basically, you want to "catch" good behavior with the clicker. What this means is that you want to train your dog that whenever you click (which means he has done something good.) The way we train the dog to respond to the clicker is simply by clicking and immediately treating the dog. It won't take your dog long to understand that whenever he hears the clicker he'll get a treat. This is an essential step in clicker training your dog. Another term that we will use is jackpot. This is an extra reward that you give your dog, usually when he has done exceptionally well or performed the trick perfectly for the first time.

Step 1: Ignore your dog until he looks directly at you. Click and treat.
Step 2: Do this several times, eventually adding your dog's name right before you click and treat.
Step 3: Continue doing this until your dog will look at you when you say his name.

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OUR EXPERIENCE

With Caspian, I grabbed my clicker and tore some bacon into small pieces. The first thing that Caspian needed to know was that whenever he looked at me, I would click and he could get a piece of bacon. I started out just ignoring Caspian and all he was doing. He looked down for a minute, exasperated, and then back up at me. Suddenly, he heard a click, and a treat dropped to the ground. A bit surprised (and grateful), he immediately swallowed it and looked up again. CLICK! and drop. I threw it a bit farther away this time so he had to turn around. When he got his treat, he turned around to look at me, and I clicked and treated again. By this time I had started saying his name whenever he looked at me. "Caspian," click, treat.

Soon, I knew he was getting the idea of what was going on. I waited until he looked away and I said, "Caspian." He jerked his head over toward where I was sitting and I clicked and treated, giving him a big piece of bacon.

TEACHING TROUBLE

Why doesn't he remember tricks?
Even though Caspian had learned his name by the end of the session, I continued to have training sessions with him just to reinforce the trick. It's so easy for a dog to learn a trick and do it every time today, but tomorrow it is forgotten. If we are patient and stick with it, our dogs will do the same and will eventually obey us every time.