Once sit has been mastered, you can teach several other commands with this
follow-the-treat method. First have your dog sit. Now pull the treat straight
out away from her and tell her to "stand." She'll have to stand to follow the
treat. Stand is an important command if you plan to show your dog; the dog needs
to be in a stand when the judge comes to examine her. It's also a useful command
when the dog is being groomed.
Or, from a sit, move the treat slowly down, not straight down between her
paws, but a little way forward, and tell her "down." She'll settle down on the
ground to follow the treat. (The distance out from her paws will be different
for every dog, due to their size; you want the treat to be right where her nose
will land when she moves down.)
These exercises are not just useful in themselves, your dog is also learning
to learn. She's learning that sometimes you want her to do something, that there
is a word associated with the thing you want her to do, and that if she pays
attention, she can figure it out,
Stay
Now for something a bit more advanced; the stay command. This is more
difficult for your dog to comprehend because in the previous commands you were
asking her to take a specific action. Here you are asking her to do nothing, but
to hold still in her current position.
You want to combine stay with another command, such as sit or down. Once
again, start with sit. When your dog is sitting, don't praise immediately, but
tell her "stay." You'll be using the same brisk tone you use to give her the
sit, stand and down command, so she knows you're asking her to do something, but
she doesn't know what. Odds are she'll sit there and look at you. After just a
few seconds of holding the sit, praise her! She stayed!
With stay, you should use a release word before you praise, to let the dog
know she's done. Most trainers use "okay." At the end of a successful stay, say,
"Okay! Good girl!"
If she breaks the sit, put her into sit again, tell her stay again, and
release and praise after a few seconds of sitting. Remember, make the stay for a
very short period when you start, because you want your dog to be doing the
correct thing so you can praise and reward her. It won't take long before she
realizes that holding still and keeping in a sit is what you want.
Now start inching further away from her while she stays, and making the stay
longer. You should be able to work up to a minute stay. Then begin combining
stay with the down command, and follow the same procedure as with the sit-stay.
Give the command, and release and praise within a few seconds, gradually
increasing the time and your distance from the dog.