The Most Important Command to Teach Your Puppy

After training a couple of thousand puppies and using this technique on my own puppy, Dixie, when I got her at 10 weeks old, the very first thing I taught her was go to your bed and stay. 

I have a video on my phone of May 5, 2020, at seven o'clock at night, where I'm showing people how I trained Dixie to go to her bed and stay the very first day that I got her. My clients are amazed at this video and how well Dixie picked it up, and how easily I taught it to her the first day I had her. I told Dixie, Go to your bed and stay. She didn't move, and a little bit later, I showed another video where I was going into my bedroom. I turned the corner. I just looked at her, and she went right to her bed and stayed. Within an hour, she had mastered the stay command on her bed.

Sometimes my clients have dogs that are 1, 2, or 3 years old, and they still can't get their dog to stay. It is essential to teach your dog to stay for many reasons, and we're going to go through them right now. 

Reason #1 to Teach the Stay Command

To prevent your puppy from jumping. When people contact me and they say, My dog runs to the door and jumps on people when they come in, it's not an issue with the jumping; it's an issue that their dog hasn't learned how to stay on their bed. Think about it. Everything that we do in positive reinforcement dog training is preventing the puppy or dog from doing something unwanted, not allowing them to do it, and rehearsing it.

If somebody comes over to the house, we put them on their bed and have them stay. They can't move; therefore, they can't run to the door and jump on somebody. You see how that works? You see how simple that is.  Most dog owners want a quick fix. They want something that is going to solve their problem in the moment, but what we want to do is prevent that problem from happening. 

Reason #2 to Teach the Stay Command

Here's another example where stay comes in handy. I come out of my car, I have to go get my mail, or I have to bring some stuff into the house. Dixie's not in the house yet. Dixie's sitting on my driveway. I tell her to stay. I open the door, I go into the house, I turn the alarm off, I come back out. She hasn't moved. I go to the car, and I get some more stuff. I put it in the house. Dixie still hasn't moved. Then I get her and I say, Okay, let's go back in the house. That's a great example of how to use a stay. 

The other day, I was at a client's house, and Dixie had a play date with a five-month-old puppy. They were running around the two acres of land behind their house, and Dixie was starting to run pretty far away, and I said, Dixie, stay. She stopped. She looked at me, I said Come and she came right back to me. 

The couple has been having many problems with getting their puppy to come back to them effectively. So what I advised them to do was first tell the dog to stay so it doesn't move anymore. So it doesn't go any further, and then call her back. That worked well. 

Reason #2 to Teach the Stay Command

Very early on, when you're in public and there are many distractions and much commotion, and maybe another dog walks by, instead of your dog reacting to that other dog, they should sit and stay. That way, you’re preventing them from lunging, hopefully barking, and responding to that other dog. The stay command can help prevent leash reactivity if appropriately used. 

Like I said in my last video about puppy socialization, we bring all puppies to stores like Bass Pro Shops, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, and Hobby Lobby. We make them go into an aisle where there are some distractions, lie down, and stay. 

What if you had to get something off the shelf in a store? What if you had to talk to one of the associates about finding something that you're looking for? What if you run into somebody that you know and you want to have a conversation with them? Your dog or your puppy has to lie down and stay and do nothing. It's the most important thing for them to learn, and I just gave you three examples of why your puppy needs to know the stay command early.

Any dog can learn to sit in five minutes as early as eight weeks old. They can learn down quickly. They can learn recall easily. They can learn to walk on a loose leash pretty well, but a lot of puppies and dogs do not know how to stay. 

How to Teach Stay

Teaching the puppy the stay command is also about controlling space. You need to control the puppy's space in the house so they don't go off and have potty accidents, start chewing your furniture, or jump on people. Basically, so they don't get themselves in trouble. Teaching them the stay command is what controls them in the house. You always know where they are. They're not running off and getting themselves into trouble because puppies are going to make bad decisions.

Get a dog bed. Not a bed in the crate, but a bed outside of the crate, a place where you can have the puppy go to lie down and learn that's the place where they have boundaries. 

Grab six treats. Stand next to the bed. Say, “stay: once every 10 seconds. Say yes and give a food reward. They have to remain in the down position on the bed. You reward every 10 seconds for six rounds. That's one minute. You're not working on distance yet. You're only working on duration. You do that 10 rounds, and then the next set, you're going to do it every 15 seconds. You say stay, and then you reward the puppy. Fifteen seconds later, reward the puppy. Yes is the marker, and the treat is the reinforcer. You give them the treat at 30 seconds. You do the same thing at 45 seconds again, and at 60 seconds one more time.

Then you're going to do it every 20 seconds and then every 30 seconds, and then you'll do it for a minute. You're looking for a minute of duration. You say, Stay. You time it. After a minute, you say, Yes, give the puppy the treat. You don't have to pet them. You don't have to be shouting their name and making them all excited, because the goal here is to calm the puppy down and relax them, and almost get them to fall asleep. Just get them to go to their bed and stay. So don't be too excited because you want the puppy to remain calm on the bed. This is part of the learning process. 

After that, you're going to work on distance. Start backing up a little bit, one foot at a time, two feet, five feet, 10 feet, and the puppy has to stay on the bed, and then you start adding distractions.

Stya includes the three D’s: Duration, distance, and distractions. You're going to create noises, and you're going to create challenges for the puppy to want to react to these noises, but they can't. They have to stay because that's what you've been working on, and that's what you told them to do. 

We take puppies to stores like Bass Pro Shops and put them in a stay. I take things off the shelves and throw them on the ground. The puppy has to stay. It doesn't move even with all the distractions. That's a great way to get your puppy to learn to stay under a high level of distractions. 

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