No matter your dog’s breed or age, they should learn the five basic commands. These skills are not only necessary for your pet’s overall behavior, but they can be extremely important in an emergency. Recall commands, and the “stay” command can easily save your pet’s life in dangerous situations.
We’ll discuss all of the important commands and skills your dog needs to know in this article. You can begin teaching your pet these as soon as you adopt them. There is no such thing as too young to learn!
“Sit”
While sit isn’t an essential command itself, it is important for teaching your dog other commands. It is difficult to teach a dog to stay if they don’t know how to sit! Sit is one of the easiest commands to teach your dog as well, so it makes a good starting point for new puppies and older dogs alike.
“Sit” likely isn’t going to save your dog’s life. However, it does make them much more well-behaved and is essential for teaching some of the more advanced commands.
“Stay”
Stay is an important command that can potentially keep your dog out of trouble. You can tell your dog to “stay” before you open the front door to prevent bolting, for instance. Stay also makes it much easier to complete everyday tasks, like putting your dog’s leash on. Stay is also a wonderful command for when you have company, as it can prevent your dog from rushing the visitors.
To teach stay, your dog already needs to know the “sit” command. One of the main reasons you should teach your dog to sit is so that you can teach the stay command. Teaching this command is pretty easy once your dog has the “sit” command down. Simply tell them to sit, give them a treat, and then tell them to stay before they get up. After a split second of them sitting still, hand them a treat. You can slowly increase the time and then begin to walk away, increasing the distance.
“Come”
After your dog learns how to “stay,” it is time to teach them to come. This is generally pretty easy. Simply put them in the stay position, walk away, and then excitedly tell them to come. Usually, dogs will quickly come to you if you act excited and pat your legs. If your dog doesn’t, you can encourage them by holding a treat out. We recommend teaching come as soon as your dog has the stay command down just a little bit. That way, they learn the come command instead of getting “stuck” in the stay command.
“Leave It”
Dogs are prone to eating things they absolutely shouldn’t. To prevent this, you can teach the “leave it” command. This is one of our favorite commands because it is extremely versatile. Once your dog knows the command, they can be told to leave just about everything alone. This can include things they aren’t supposed to be eating, as well things you just don’t want them to have, like your socks and children’s toys.
“Drop it”
Drop it is another important command that works well if you don’t manage to say “leave it” soon enough. It is easiest to teach this command to playful puppies, and you can teach it before your pooch has even learned another command as part of their regular playtime.
Simply play with one of your dog’s favorite toys, pick up a different toy, tell them to “drop it,” and then trade them the toy. Many excitable puppies will happily go after the new toy that you’re holding. Eventually, they’ll learn to drop whatever they’re holding when they hear this command.
Older dogs can be a bit more difficult, as they don’t tend to swap toys as easily. In this case, we recommend starting with a toy that they only somewhat like and then telling them to “drop it” for a toy they really like. You can also ask them to drop a toy for a treat, which some food-driven dogs will find more appealing.
