Does your dog like to grab tasty food from the counter at home? Does your pup get excited and jump up at guests when they arrive? Or, maybe you’re trying to teach your dog to calm down and relax?
If you can relate to any of the above, there’s a key command you might like to try – and all it involves are some tasty treats and the best dog bed for your pup.
Sherry Nativo, a certified professional dog trainer from All About Training Dogs, has offered some advice in a recent Instagram post, and it’s so useful. So, let’s take a look.
“This is the one behavior all dogs should know,” Nativo begins, “‘Go to bed’ means go find your bed, lie down, and stay.”
In her video, Nativo is working with a puppy who’s learning to stay in his bed during dinner. She’s giving him treats while he’s in the bed, and explains, “The puppy needs to be lying in the bed, not sitting.”
She sits at the dinner table while the dog is in his bed, still tossing him treats as he stays lying down. “Notice that he’s not trying to steal the food off the table,” she says, before sitting down with a plate of food to make it more of a challenge for the pup. She keeps tossing him treats, however, and he remains in place.
The great thing about this command is its versatility – there are many reasons you might want your dog to go to their bed and stay there for a while. Nativo mentions a few key reasons in her caption:
• Counter surfing – one of the most common dog behavior problems
• Begging for food at the table
• Demand barking (when dogs learn that barking will get them what they want)
• To get them to stay
• To get them to calm down or relax
• If your dog is fearful of strangers
So, if you’d like a way to keep your pup out of trouble, whether they like to grab food or make themselves known to guests, why not give Nativo’s advice a try?
Perhaps the issue you’re facing is that your dog doesn’t like to go in their own bed – and much prefers yours! If you’d like to know how to tackle this, here’s how to train your dog to sleep in a dog bed or how to get a dog to sleep in a different room.
