Dog commands

Dogs are brilliant animals, and they can learn all sorts of things. There are some words that are crucial for dogs, and these are known as ‘commands’. Commands are generally actions that you expect your dog to follow without fail. Generally, you start training your dog with these commands from a young age. This can start as young as eight to ten weeks, however dogs can learn these commands at any age.

Why are commands important?

It’s important to train your dog to follow commands because dogs don’t understand the world like we do. There are lots of situations where you’ll need to communicate with your pet – for instance, stopping it from crossing a road when a car is coming, eating something that’s going to make it sick or just getting down off someone or something. Commands can be an important safety aspect for both your pet and those people around you.

The top 8 commands for dogs

There are many things that you can train your dog to do but at Salisbury Dog Trainers, we have 8 commands that we believe that every dog should know and be able to follow faithfully when the command is given.

Here they are:

1. Heel

This is one of the most well-known commands for dogs – and even people who aren’t dog owners will be familiar with this iconic phrase. Training your dog to heel means commanding them to come and stand to your side. The correct heel position is just behind your knee. Dogs can be trained to heel to the left or the right leg and this sometimes varies, but most dog trainers use the left side for the technique.

Heeling is an important command because it gives them a calm place next to you where you and your dog will be close. This ensures that the dog isn’t too far ahead, too far behind and it gives you the flexibility to interact with your dog easily, either to have some extra control – or just to give them a treat or take off their lead.

2. Here (come)

This is a recall command. The purpose of this is to train your dog or puppy to stop what they’re doing and return to you. At Salisbury Dog Trainers, we work to form a positive relationship with this command. It should be a positive experience that is rewarded with a treat or some positive attention. This is also why we use the command ‘Here’ instead of ‘come’.

Here sounds a lot less harsh than come and the ‘He-‘ sound has a higher pitch and sounds both more positive and persuasive to dogs. Training your dog to respond to this command is important because when they are off the lead, you will want to ensure that they have reliable recall.

3. Stay (wait)

Stay and Wait are similar commands, but they have two slightly different functions. Stay is generally used for longer periods when you want your dog just to stay put. Stay is like telling your dog “Hang out there, it’s going to be a while and I’m going to come back to you”. it’s a longer-term behaviour that denotes a more settled state.

For example, if your door is open and you need to pop out to your car to bring in the shopping, you probably don’t want your dog thinking that it’s time to join you and get in your way. Stay will ensure that your dog is trained to stay put while you can move around (within reason) and then return to them. Stay can also be used as an emergency stop – for instance if your dog sees a rabbit or squirrel and decides to chase after it. Stay will put the brakes on and then you can follow up with your recall command “Here”.

Wait is normally used for shorter periods of time where you may want your dog to act and is more like telling your dog “Wait there for a moment and then I’ll release you to do something.” it’s a short-term behaviour that you might use while putting them on the lead or putting their food bowls down.

As with most of our training recommendations, we believe it’s good to use a positive reward approach. Rewarding the correct behaviour and teaching your dog that their patience will be rewarded with treats and attention, will really help to solidify that behaviour and make it reliable and consistent.

4. No

No is a negative command for both humans and dogs, but no means no. No is used a lot during the training process, and it is used to express dissatisfaction with an action or behaviour. When training puppies and dogs, the tone of voice and body language are everything.

Deeper, confident and more meaningful tones along with stationary body language can help to teach your dog that you are not impressed with the behaviour. While reinforcement training supplies the best results, it’s important to be able to communicate both behaviours that you find positive and unwanted behaviours.

5. Off

Dogs are our beloved and innocent companions but unfortunately for them, there is no difference between a rock and an antique sofa! By training the ‘off’ command to your dog, you can let them know the places that they’re allowed to be on, and the places that they’re not allowed to be on.

Though this command can be trained at any age, it’s better to start early and it’s essential to remain consistent with the commands and ensure that you follow-through. If you chop and change or you fall prey to the puppy-dog eyes and give in, then they’ll end up getting confused and the behaviour won’t stick.

6. Leave / Leave it

As we mentioned earlier, even though they are domesticated, dogs are instinctive animals, and they can often show this behaviour in unwanted ways that can put them or others at risk.

This is especially true if your dog is showing unwanted behaviours like resource guarding; refusing to put the ball down when it’s time to go home or when they’re eating your shoes instead of a dog toy, for example, or they’re displaying reactive behaviours like chasing a bike or rushing to eat some medication that got spilled or a sharp chicken bone that got dropped.

Leave is a great command to train your dog to tackle these behaviours and help keep your pet safe from hazards. The Leave command has two elements, firstly it snaps them out of the behaviour that they’re displaying. It can be important to break that behaviour before it takes hold. Secondly, it teaches the dog that it’s OK to leave something because if they do, the rewards are going to be there waiting for them.

Like Stay, this is a command that requires practice and repetition with positive reinforcement until it becomes a reliable and automatic behaviour.

7. Sit

The sit command is one of the fundamental commands for every dog and it’s one of the easier behaviours to train. Sit is a great command because it will place your dog into a calm and settled position which will allow you to interact with them – to put their lead on or give them a treat, for example. Training your dog to ‘sit’ will also get them ready for other essential dog commands like stay and it will give you a great introduction to training positive behaviours in your dog.

Experienced dog owners and handlers (like us) often don’t even need to use voice-commands to instruct their dogs to sit, they can use hand gestures instead.

8. Down / Lay Down

Not to be confused with off, down is an extension of the ‘sit’ command. It’s not a command that is designed to let your dog know that you don’t like what they’re doing like ‘no’ and ‘off’, but like sit, this will allow you to get your dog into a more settled state and share some engagement and focus. As with sit – Down is one of the easier commands to train your dog and both ‘sit’ and ‘down’ are a great introduction to some of the other essential commands such as ‘leave’, ‘stay’ and ‘off’.

Wrapping it up!

So, there you have it. The top 8 commands that every dog should know and why. As always, if you have any questions or if you would like us to help you with your dog training needs, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and we’ll be more than happy to help.

Until next time!