How to teach your dog to stay still when you open doors? ⬇️
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▫️Teach them to remain in place upon hearing the “Stay” command.
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Use a carpet/mat, which is also important from the safety point of view if the floor is slippery.
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With a treat in your hand, lead your pup to a place you have chosen, say “Stay!” and give him a treat.
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Wait a second and give him another treat.
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The most important goal is for the dog to stay put. It doesn’t matter if he’s sitting or lying down, as long as he is comfortable.
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If your dog is trying to leave, bring him back to the same spot, repeat the command, wait a second and give him a treat. Then you can increase the gap between the command and the treat.
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▫️Begin making the task harder:
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Say “Stay!”, make one step back towards the door (facing the dog), then come back immediately and give him a treat.
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As soon as your dog remains in one spot without any difficulty, you can complicate the task a bit more: make more steps, turn your back to the dog, etc…
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▫️Remember that you should only make the dog’s task harder if he is very good at the original task.
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If you pup makes a mistake (for example, tries to follow you or leaves), calmly bring him back to the spot and repeat the previous step.
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▫️Note that you should only reward your dog when you approach him, so that you don’t motivate him to move towards you.
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▫️As soon as you can see that your pet doesn’t have any problem staying in one spot while you’re walking towards the door and back, take the exercise to a new level: touch the door handle, unlock the door, open the door just a bit, close it again, leave the door open, walk out and knock or ring the bell, ask your neighbors to play guests…
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✔️An important rule: finish the training session before your dog gets bored!
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This exercise is difficult for easily-excitable dogs. They’ll need more time to learn.
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▫️Make sure to use a command that will notify the dog that the training session is over, so that he (very fairly) doesn’t decide that the lesson ends when he wants it to.
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Don’t hurry! Give your pup time to learn.
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With patience and consistence, you’ll be surprised how quickly your dog will learn to stay calm!
