An Easy Way to Train a Dog to Stay on the Dog Bed

By: David Codr

Published Date: May 29, 2023

stay on the dog bed

For this Santa Monica dog training session we worked with 3 year-old Pit mix Mojo, sharping tips on how to train a dog to stay on the dog bed.

Knowing that Mojo liked to jump up on people at the door, I had a few high value treats in my hands; held at my side. As soon as the door opened and Mojo started to jump up, I moved one of my hands in front of his nose to capture his attention, then lured him down into a standing position in front of me. Once he was standing and sniffing my hand, I gave him the treat. Then I waited a second and gave the treat from my other hand. There is more to it, but this is a great way to teach your dog to stop jumping on people at the door.

I sat down with his guardian and went over a number of dog behavior fundamentals. We brushed up on marker words, hand targeting, the importance of celebrating desired behaviors and how to teach dog manners. I also shared some tips on creative forms of exercise, how to stop unwanted behaviors and showed them how to help Mojo get over his fear of the harness.

Next, the guardians asked me how to teach Mojo to go to and stay on the dog bed.

How to train a dog to stay on the dog bed

The guardians had already done soem good work as Mojo was sitting or laying down in the area of the dog bed on hos own at different portions of the session. But now that we had resurrected his use of the marker word, I wanted to show his clients an easy way to teach a dog to go to the dog bed.

If you have a dog that doesn’t go to the dog bed or won’t stay there, you should definitely check out the free positive dog training video below.

By breaking down the activity into small steps, we were able to set the dog up for success. It only took a couple of minutes before we were able to tell Mojo to go to the dog bed on cue. I recommended the guardian practice this exercise with 15 or 20 treats, 3 to 5 times a day. Frequent practice is one of the secrets to training a dog to stay on the dog bed.

At first, the humans will need to toss the treat to act as a lure. But after enough practice, they should be able to say the cue and point to the dog bed, have Mojo do get on the bed so they can say the marker word and reward him.

Teaching a dog to stay on a dog bed as you walk away can be challenging for a lot of people. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. By breaking that action into small steps, then rewarding Mojo for staying on the dog bed, it didn’t take long for his guardian to be able to walk all the way across the room and have Mojo stay on the dog bed.

I recommended that they practice this easy way to teach a dog to go to the dog bed a couple of times a day for a week or two. Not only will this turn into a great way to move the dog around the home (sending him to his bed), the guardians can use this exercise to help him practice settling down.

To wrap up the session, we headed outside so that I could share some tips on how to stop Mojo from reacting to other dogs. This video from another dog behavior session breasks down the steps of helping a dog learn not to lunge or bark at other dogs.

By the time we returned home, Mojo was definitely tired. Normally I would not recommend working with a dog this long – shorter more frequent sessions is definitely the way to go when you’re trying to modify a dogs behavior. But because we gave him multiple breaks and kept the intense stuff to short lengths, Mojo did great. Its just not a habit Id like his guardian to get into.

To help the guardian remember all of the dog behavior and training tips we shared in this in-home Santa Monica dog training session, we recorded a roadmap to success summary video. If you want to check out all these positive dog training tips, be sure to check out the free dog training video below.

Tags: , , , ,

Categorized in:

This post was written by: David Codr