Go To Spot

Beasley Digital

4/23/2025

Go To Spot

Transcript

00:00Hi guys, I'm Jen Green and this is Stryker. We are from Tailwaggers Academy and we're here for

00:06the Ask the Trainer with the John DeBella Dog Walk. Today we're going to be talking about how

00:11do I get my dog to go settle down. There's a great way to do it. It's called going to your spot.

00:18How would you use it in a real life situation? When you have company over, you want your dogs

00:23to settle down a bit. If you're eating your meal, if you're eating your own dinner and you want your

00:29dog to not beg at the table, this is a great way to have your dog have their own special area where

00:36they can kind of just go chill out. If your dog is getting really rammy and they just need that

00:43settle down time, this is a great opportunity to start teaching them how to go to your spot. Right

00:49now Stryker is in his spot. I expect him to stay there until I tell him to get up. So we're going

00:56to start from the beginning. I am going to be using a clicker and some treats and we're going

01:01to get started. So I'm going to ask Stryker to take a break, which means basically you can get up.

01:08The way we're going to start this out, guys, I'm going to point to an area where I want him to

01:13actually go, which is his blanket. I love using a blanket because it's portable. You can bring it

01:19anywhere that you go. You go out to dinner. When we're allowed to go out to dinner, you can bring the

01:24blanket with you. You're going over to friends or family homes. You can bring this with you too. So

01:29it's a great opportunity to have something with their son on it. And it's a place where they know

01:34that they can go relax. So I'm going to start over here and I'm going to point to the blanket.

01:42Soon as he steps on it, I'm going to click and reward. And then I'm going to tell him break.

01:48We're going to go back to it again. I expect him to go stand on it again. And then I'm going to give

01:56him that release again. Take a break. After they've done that, I'm going to say maybe about six or so

02:04times we can go to the next level. Take a break, buddy. Next level would be if you point to the area,

02:11will your dog go into a sit position? If they do, awesome. If not, you can actually tell them to sit.

02:19Take a break. We're going to do that. We're going to do that, I'm going to say about six or so times

02:26again. Their ultimate goal, guys, is to go to their blanket and go lay down. So if you've noticed,

02:34I haven't told striker to go to his spot because I want him to understand the behavior before we name it.

02:41So this is why we're having them do different phases of let's have them go to the area first.

02:48Let's have them sit on the area. The next part is let's have them go into a down. So I'm going to point

02:53to it again. I'm going to wait him out and I'm going to see if he goes into that down position.

02:59Good job, buddy. Clicked and treated. I am treating right on the blanket because I want to build up the

03:05association with the blanket and not with me. Take a break. We're going to do that.

03:11About six or eight times. If your dog needs more, give them more. Don't feel like you have to rush

03:16through this. The next part is once your dog has done this consistently, now we're actually going

03:24to put the word with it. Now here's the thing. Once you name it and if your dog doesn't do it,

03:31I don't want you repeating it. Okay. I want you to give your dog the opportunity to do it.

03:36If they can't do it, then I want you to give them that release word, which is break for striker.

03:43It just means get up from your current position. So I'm going to point to the area again and I'm

03:49going to tell him spot. I expect him to go into that down position. Good job, buddy.

03:57And I'm going to click and treat right on that blanket again. I'm going to do it one more time.

04:02Take a break. Striker, spot. Good job.

04:13That's the beginning part of spot. So the next level is spot. This is a little bit more advanced

04:20and you need a lot of practice for this one. The next part of this is, okay, my dog went there,

04:27but they're getting right up. So now you have to learn how to build a little bit of duration for

04:32this. So the duration would be, we're going to go to the spot and instead of clicking and rewarding

04:38right away or yesing and rewarding right away, we're going to put a little bit of movement. We're

04:43going to walk around a little bit. We're going to let him know movement does not mean that you move.

04:49It means that you're still in that position because I don't want my dog getting up until he hears his

04:56release word and his release word is that break word. And he can look at me totally fine. I just

05:03don't want him getting up from position. So basically the reason why I was walking into him was I'm letting

05:11him know when I went in and clicked and treated him on his blanket after I told him spot, I'm letting

05:19him know you just did a really good job not getting up. So that's how we start with the basic part of

05:27going to your spot, moving it into a little bit more advanced of holding the position now. Every dog

05:33learns this differently. Some dogs learn it super fast. Some dogs learn it really, really slow.

05:39That's okay. Every dog's different. So let's see if your dog can go to their spot.

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