Orange County Dog Lady 1-888-80-OCDOG
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What Every Good Dog Should Know: Go To Your Bed
As a professional dog trainer, owners approach me with a vast array of problems they have with their pet dogs. Whether its jumping, begging, aggression, or any other range of problems....there is one behavior which I strongly recommend every dog owner teach to their dog.
"Go To Your Bed"
You can call it whatever you want, but the ability to send your dog to a specified location will often be useful in any number of scenarios. Lets say your dog harasses people at the front door. The "Go to your Bed" command can be used to send your dog away from the front door so that the guest can be invited inside without being bombarded by the dog.
Or lets say your dog has an issue with food aggression. My first dog was a German Shepherd named Libby who would become extremely possessive over any food item she was given. In order to defuse the situation, any time she was given a bone we would give her the command "kennel" which effectively told her she needed to go to her bed in her crate and eat whatever she had.
The multitude of uses for the "go to your bed" command are endless. But how do you teach it, you may ask?
One way that I have found to be the most successful is the following. I personally use crates as my dogs "beds" that they know to go to. You can use anything but it should be a clearly identifiable area. A rug, a fleece, a pet bed, etc are all acceptable things to teach your dog to go to on command.
Lets break this down into steps:
1) Most people start by trying to send the dog to the mat. But as with most complex behaviors we train, its best to start with the LAST behavior in the sequence.
What does that mean exactly? Well, when you look at the total picture, we are asking the dog to move from where it is, find its "bed" and lay down.
So the last behavior in the sequence is to lay down on the mat. I prefer laying down because its a much more solid position (versus having the dog stand on the mat and find its tippie toeeiing off the mat when your not looking!) When I'd start working on this behavior, I'd just tell the dog to lay down on its bed and give a treat. Repeat. I like to toss the treat on the mat, versus feeding from my hand, because I find that the dog is better able to get distance that way later on.
2) Wait for anticipation!! Dogs are creatures of habit, and if they are properly motivated then what you will most likely begin to see is the dog anticipating you telling it to lay down on the mat. GREAT! Reward it! Once your seeing anticipating, you can change the command up on the dog (since its anticipating - its not really listening anyway, right?!) and begin saying "go to your bed" instead. Other commands you could give for this behavior are "place," "kennel," "crate," etc.
3) Once the dog is reliably laying down on its own....I like to play the waiting game and move slightly further back from the mat. Will the dog still take a guess and move towards the bed and lay down??? Just freeze and see what happens!
Most owners are surprised to see their dog DOES make guess and move to the mat. REWARD IT! Keep adding distance.
- If the dog isn't guessing at this point, you should take a look at the distractions, motivation of the dog, etc. Are you doing it fast enough? Have you been consistently rewarding the dog? Are you tossing the treats on the mat? Is the mat clearly identifiable? Is true...some dogs need a different method to learn to go to their bed. Or a different motivation.
Once you find the dog is going to the mat from 6 feet away, change the direction you send the dog and add distractions.
Separately, you should also be working on your "down stay" command ON the mat. Build the duration that the dog is staying on the mat and the distractions under under which it will hold its stay. If your going to use this when company comes over, send the dog to its bed and ring the doorbell or making noises like knocking on the front door.
While these suggestions do not take into account dogs that might need a slightly different approach to teaching the "go to your bed" command...its a good way to start and seee what you can get out of your dog.
You can call it whatever you want, but the ability to send your dog to a specified location will often be useful in any number of scenarios. Lets say your dog harasses people at the front door. The "Go to your Bed" command can be used to send your dog away from the front door so that the guest can be invited inside without being bombarded by the dog.
Or lets say your dog has an issue with food aggression. My first dog was a German Shepherd named Libby who would become extremely possessive over any food item she was given. In order to defuse the situation, any time she was given a bone we would give her the command "kennel" which effectively told her she needed to go to her bed in her crate and eat whatever she had.
One way that I have found to be the most successful is the following. I personally use crates as my dogs "beds" that they know to go to. You can use anything but it should be a clearly identifiable area. A rug, a fleece, a pet bed, etc are all acceptable things to teach your dog to go to on command.
Lets break this down into steps:
1) Most people start by trying to send the dog to the mat. But as with most complex behaviors we train, its best to start with the LAST behavior in the sequence.
What does that mean exactly? Well, when you look at the total picture, we are asking the dog to move from where it is, find its "bed" and lay down.
So the last behavior in the sequence is to lay down on the mat. I prefer laying down because its a much more solid position (versus having the dog stand on the mat and find its tippie toeeiing off the mat when your not looking!) When I'd start working on this behavior, I'd just tell the dog to lay down on its bed and give a treat. Repeat. I like to toss the treat on the mat, versus feeding from my hand, because I find that the dog is better able to get distance that way later on.
2) Wait for anticipation!! Dogs are creatures of habit, and if they are properly motivated then what you will most likely begin to see is the dog anticipating you telling it to lay down on the mat. GREAT! Reward it! Once your seeing anticipating, you can change the command up on the dog (since its anticipating - its not really listening anyway, right?!) and begin saying "go to your bed" instead. Other commands you could give for this behavior are "place," "kennel," "crate," etc.
3) Once the dog is reliably laying down on its own....I like to play the waiting game and move slightly further back from the mat. Will the dog still take a guess and move towards the bed and lay down??? Just freeze and see what happens!
Most owners are surprised to see their dog DOES make guess and move to the mat. REWARD IT! Keep adding distance.
- If the dog isn't guessing at this point, you should take a look at the distractions, motivation of the dog, etc. Are you doing it fast enough? Have you been consistently rewarding the dog? Are you tossing the treats on the mat? Is the mat clearly identifiable? Is true...some dogs need a different method to learn to go to their bed. Or a different motivation.
Once you find the dog is going to the mat from 6 feet away, change the direction you send the dog and add distractions.
Separately, you should also be working on your "down stay" command ON the mat. Build the duration that the dog is staying on the mat and the distractions under under which it will hold its stay. If your going to use this when company comes over, send the dog to its bed and ring the doorbell or making noises like knocking on the front door.
While these suggestions do not take into account dogs that might need a slightly different approach to teaching the "go to your bed" command...its a good way to start and seee what you can get out of your dog.
