Therapy Dog Tip of the Day:  Place 🐕
“Place” is a very helpful command whether you’re a therapy dog or not. Humans use lots of different words for this command – “bed”, “pillow”, “spot”, etc. Whatever word is used, it means “go to there”.
🐕 This can be used to calm you down, to keep you from overwhelming visitors that come to the door, or to keep you from being underfoot. Momma also uses “place” when the kiddos at the library read to me.
🐕 I learned this when I was a pup at obedience school. Momma would put down my mat and throw treats on it so that I would like to go there. Once I had all 4 paws on my mat, she would tell me that I’m a good boy and give me gentle pets – not too enthusiastically because she didn’t want me getting all excited.
🐕 Once I got good at going to my place, she added the “down” command. I already knew that down would be followed by either “wait” or “stay”. “Wait” means “this will be short, I’ll release you soon”. “Stay” means “this will be a while, and I’ll release you when I’m back at your side” (at least that’s how momma does it).
🐕 Momma uses the “down” command, but you might also hear “sit”. Momma doesn’t use sit because I’m more likely to break from a sit (I working on it, I promise).
🐕 You can have multiple “places”. I have my travel mat, and dog beds in the living room, office, and by the front door. I also have my 2 crates, one upstairs and one downstairs, but momma uses “crate” as the command when she wants me to go there.
❓ Do you have a place command?