Core Obedience

The essential cues every dog should know: sit, down, stay, come, leave it, drop it, focus, and place.

• Teaching Sit

  The first cue most dogs learn — and the most useful default behavior in your toolkit.

• Teaching Down

  Down is a calm, grounded position — great for settling and a step toward "place."

• Stay: Duration, Distance, Distraction

  Teach your dog to hold a position — sit or down — until you release them, even as you add time, step away, and life gets distracting. How you build rock-solid duration can depend on your dog: most get there on rewards alone, some benefit from light remote-collar clarity once the behavior is fluent.

• Recall ("Come")

  Teach your dog to come back to you, every time, no matter what's going on around them. Recall is the single most important safety behavior you'll ever train — and the one where how you train it should match the dog in front of you.

• Leave It

  Teach your dog to turn away from something the instant you ask — dropped food, a dead bird, another dog's toy. It's an impulse-control and safety skill; most dogs learn it purely on rewards, and for a fluent dog working around real-world temptations some handlers add light remote-collar clarity.

• Teaching Drop It

  Drop it means "open your mouth right now" — the emergency cue for socks, chicken bones, and stolen shoes.

• Watch Me: The Focus Cue

  Teach eye contact on cue. It's the "reset button" for a distracted dog.

• Place: Settle on a Mat

  Teach your dog to go to a mat or bed and settle there until released — the single most useful "off switch" you can install. Most dogs learn Place happily on rewards; for a fluent dog who needs to hold it around big distractions, some handlers add light remote-collar clarity.