Getting your dog to lie quietly in its bed is a very challenging task. However, teaching them this habit is very helpful during daily activities. So how can you teach your dog to relax and stay in a chosen spot until the designated time?
Getting your dog to lie quietly in its bed is a very challenging task. However, teaching them this habit is very helpful during daily activities. So how can you teach your dog to relax and stay in a chosen spot until the designated time?
Why is it important for dog owners to teach their dog to go to their place?
Imagine cleaning or cooking while your dog isn’t underfoot, enjoying coffee with guests without your dog jumping on them in excitement, or during a family lunch, your dog isn’t demonstrating its hunger and loudly asking for food.
This kind of behavior is achievable if we train the dog to go to its place on command.
Where to start training?
First of all, we need to choose a spot where the dog will go upon hearing the command. Given that it’s easy to move for training purposes, we suggest it be a dog bed.
You need to make the dog think that this piece of fabric is the happiest place on earth by placing a chew bone, toys, or encouraging it with treats.
When starting, you must choose words to issue commands, both when directing the dog to the bed and giving it the option to leave. For example, it could be – “go to place” and “free”.
- Show your dog the bed and reward it for any sign of interest (sniffing, going into it)
- Using the command “go to place”, practice with it until it completely lies down in the bed, when it does, you must reward it. Now you can give the command “free” and throw a treat somewhere next to the bed.
- Check if your dog returns to the bed when you give the command “go to place”, if yes, you can reward it; if not, you need to keep practicing step 2.
- When your dog is in the bed, start rewarding it when it lies down; you can induce this behavior by applying pressure on its back.
- While training, extend the time of rewarding for each command well executed.
- When your dog is lying quietly, waiting for the command “free”, you can move the bed to another location and practice giving commands at greater distances.
Most dogs learn this behavior very quickly. However, if at any of the above steps, your dog cannot understand you, it’s a sign that you moved on too quickly to the next step and need to work more on the previous one. To generalize this behavior, practice in different locations in the house, this way you will gain a practical method of controlling your dog’s behavior, no matter where you are.