Week 1 First Three Steps of Place

  THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE PLACE (STEP 1):


STEP 1:   Position your place equipment in the middle of the room.
STEP 2:  Start walking your dog around the room.
STEP 3:   Walk  with your dog over the place area.   When all four paws are in the place, say "place".
STEP 4:   Repeat step three from every angle of the place mat or bed (remember dogs can totally interpret something as "just from this direction", so help them to learn to generalize the command by doing this).
STEP 5:  After several (15 or so) repeats of this, stop short of the mat, and see if the dog is ready to step on themselves.  

SEND TO PLACE (STEP 2):

STEP 1:  You still have a leash and collar on your dog.   The place (board, mat, dog bed) item is in the middle of the room so you can walk around it, and use all sides to place your dog (so that they do not generalize).
STEP 2:   Now as you approach the place, from a couple of steps away from the boarder of the "place item", extend your arm and point as you say "place" before the dog walks onto the place (different than before as you were saying place as you walked over with your dog, and only when the four paws were on the mat).
STEP 3:  If your dog does not make it onto the place themselves, use the collar lead and your body language (IE nudge into the direction) to help your dog to the place mat.   Be sure once there, that all four of their paws are on it.   If paws are sticking out beyond the boarder, just place your feet near them.   If they try to walk off and you catch them early, you can normally just move towards them quickly, and they will walk back onto the place area. 
STEP 4:  I do this until I can get three sets of four sends in a row that don't need prompting or correction.   Once this has started, this usually takes 5-7 minutes.  Later I use it as a warm up for Circle Place.

Circle Place: 

Add to above directions for send to place, but now you are concentrating on circle place.

STEP 5:  Once all four dog feet are on the place board, and your dog remains in whatever position he/she wants to, hold your six foot leash  (this is so your dog can't dart away and have a game of chase), and circle close to the boarders of the place item (mat, board, dog bed).   When a successful circle has been made, you can tell your dog "good place" and give them a scratch under the chin (or food reward) "yes" break and lead your dog off the place board.   You can tell him/her that this was very good.   You should only leave the place board once the performance has been good (IE you made circles around them very closely).

Goal is to build this up to at least a minute.  The biggest goal is to get four in a row of whatever time you have selected.   So if your puppy keeps breaking, then you need to probably reduce the time.

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