Five well-trained cues do more than fifty half-trained ones. Pick these, drill them in short sessions, and build everything else from there.
The five
- Sit — your default "wait a moment" cue
- Stay — duration and distance, built slowly
- Come — the recall that brings them back from anywhere
- Down — for longer settles
- Leave it — for the dropped chicken bone moment
Three-minute sessions, three times a day
Pets learn faster in short, focused bursts than long marathons. End every session before they get bored.
Building each cue in stages
Teach the behaviour first in a quiet room with no distractions, then add duration ("stay" for longer), then distance (you stepping further away), and only then distraction (other people, noise, other dogs). Skipping straight to a busy park is the most common reason a "known" cue seems to vanish outside the house — the dog never actually practised it at that difficulty level.
What to do when a cue stalls
If your dog stops responding somewhere they used to, don't repeat the word louder — go back a stage. Lower the distraction, shorten the distance, or raise the treat value, then rebuild up again. It's rarely stubbornness; it's usually a jump in difficulty that happened too fast.
Use treats your pet actually loves — boring food gets boring obedience.
