Why It's Important to Teach the PLACE Command

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There’s plenty of reasons to train your dog and teach them the PLACE command. It’s a great learning tool and gives them another impressive skill to show others that they know and understand what you expect of them.

Place Command Uses

You can use this command anytime someone rings your doorbell or knocks on your door. It’s great so you can answer the door without your dog trying to dash out the door or to stop them from jumping up on your guests as they enter your house.
Anytime you eat on the couch and don’t want them begging. You can also use this command while eating at a kitchen table so they don’t get table scraps or while you are cooking so they don’t get hurt if hot oil splashes while cooking or anything else that may occur.
In multiple dog households it’s a good command for your dog to know as well. This is so you can interact with each dog one on one and have the other dogs on their place cot/bed.

Teach the Place Command:

Set up the dog cot or bed.
Put your dog on a leash.
Stand a few feet away and say ‘place’ and guide your dog to the cot.
Once all four feet are on the cot say ‘good’ and give a high value treat. If you clicker train, click once all four feet are on the cot and then reward your dog.
Your dog doesn’t need to sit or lay down, just keep all four feet on the cot. If your dog moves a foot off before you give the ‘release’ command, say ‘no’ and guide them back onto the cot.
First begin this without any distractions. No other people or dogs in the room. If easily distracted, turn off the TV as well. Only begin with short periods on time for training.
Practice and repeat this until your dog can hold the ‘place’ command. Don’t expect more than 10-15 seconds at the beginning.
Once they can hold it for 30-60 seconds, you can slowly increase distractions as well as slowly increasing the time they stay on the cot.

I taught this on a raised dog cot from Carlson Pet Products. If you usually have a dog bed laying on the floor of the living quarters, you can train them on that but using a raised cot lets them feel when they have stepped off the area you expect them to remain on until released. In my opinion it’s easier to train on a raised cot and then slowly transition to the dog bed. Every dog is different though so your dog may learn without a raised cot while others learn quicker with one.

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It was also sponsored by Carlson Pet Products who provided us the green dog cot in exchange for a review.