A dog that sits perfectly in the kitchen for cheese and hears nothing at the park hasn't failed to learn "sit". The lure got the behaviour started. Whether it holds up anywhere that isn't the kitchen comes down to what sits underneath it.
Luke Buchanan, Owner of The Toe Beans Co and Sydney's Puppy Trainer, teaches the same six foundation commands to every dog that comes through the door: Sit, Down, Stay, Wait, the release word, and Recall. They're taught with positive reinforcement layered on top of The Toe Beans Co's Relational Leadership approach. No corrections, no dominance framing, nothing a dog gets forced into. A marker word or a clicker will sharpen your timing later, and that's a refinement rather than a requirement.
Six is a deliberate number. These are the cues that get used every day and stack into each other, so each one you teach makes the next one quicker.
Read the dog before you read the plan
Nothing meaningful gets taught to a dog above a 5 on the energy meter, the 1 to 10 scale we use to read arousal. Above that threshold your dog physically can't take the information in, however well they know the word.
What I see most often in group classes is an owner drilling a cue at a puppy sitting somewhere around an eight, then getting frustrated that nothing lands. Bring the arousal down first. Then train.
Sit
Sit is the ready position everything else gets built on, and it's taught by luring the nose up and back until the bottom touches the floor.
Hold a treat just above your dog's nose and say "Sit" once. Move the treat back over the head. The instant the bottom touches the floor, mark it with "Good" and reward. Repeat, fading the hand movement quickly so your dog is responding to the word rather than chasing a hand.
Distance is a separate skill, not a longer version of the same one. Attach a lead to something secure, step back a metre, say "Sit" calmly and give it up to five seconds. Nothing happening means you're too far away, so move closer and go again. Only add distance once the current distance is genuinely reliable rather than mostly reliable.
Once Sit is solid, drill this sequence: Sit, Down, Stand, Sit, Stand, Down. It runs every possible transition between positions and gives you a dog who responds from wherever they happen to be, not only from standing. And end every session on something your dog gets right, even if that means dropping back to the easiest version you've got.
Down
Down is always taught from a Sit rather than from standing, because it's a smaller and less confrontational ask for the dog.
Put your dog in a Sit. Hold food in front of the nose and move it slowly down the front of the chest, saying "Down" as you go. Take it to the ground and hold it there so they have to shift their weight backwards slightly to follow it. Then wait. Let them work it out, and don't release the food until the tummy is on the floor. Early on a near-down still earns the reward, because at that stage you're shaping the movement rather than demanding the finished position.
Down at a distance uses the same tethered method as Sit at a distance. It's an advanced ask, and rushing it is how you end up with a dog who creeps forward every single time.
Stay
Stay means don't move, I'm coming back to you. The release always happens with you standing next to your dog.
Put your dog in a Sit, hold a flat hand out and say "Stay" in a calm, clear voice. Step back half a metre, come straight back, mark and reward. Repeat at that half metre for far longer than feels necessary. Then add a single variable, distance or duration or a turned back, and leave the other two alone until that one is solid.
If your dog breaks position, walk them calmly back to the spot and go again. No drama, and no repeating the cue with frustration in your voice, because that just adds energy to a moment that needed less of it. Get Stay properly solid before you go anywhere near Wait. The three things owners add too fast walks through the build in more detail.
Wait
Wait means stop moving, I may call you to me or I may come back to you. That second half is the entire difference between Wait and Stay, and it's the distinction most owners have never had explained to them.
| Stay | Wait | |
|---|---|---|
| What it promises the dog | I'm coming back to you | I may call you, I may come back |
| Where the release happens | Standing next to the dog | From a distance, or up close |
| Everyday use | Holding position while you deal with the front door | Doorways, the boot of the car, the food bowl, the kerb |
Put your dog in a Sit, hold up one finger and say "Wait" gently. Reverse back two metres while keeping eye contact. Call them to you using their name and an upbeat tone, and reward on arrival. Extend the distance from there, gradually.
Some dogs pick Wait and Stay up together without blinking. Others get thoroughly confused by them, and when that happens, separate the two cues completely for a week or two before you put them back together.
The release word
Every held command needs an ending, and that ending is "OK". Without it your dog is technically still on command indefinitely, so they invent their own release and start breaking position at random.
This is the most common technical error I correct in sessions. Owners teach a genuinely good Stay and then never tell the dog when it's over. The cue does ordinary daily work too: releasing a dog waiting at the back door, or off a bed or a mat.
"Good girl" and "OK" are doing two different jobs and they're easy to run together. "Good girl" is encouragement during the behaviour. "OK" ends it. Drop a "good girl" at the wrong moment and your dog breaks the Stay thinking they've been released. Said out loud, the pattern that works is "Staaay, good girl, stay", and then "OK".
Recall
Recall means come to my feet. Luke's standard on this is absolute: coming in your general direction, or most of the way across the grass and then off to sniff something, is a failed recall.
It's the one command that has to work at the exact moment your dog is least interested in listening, which makes it the chink in the armour of most otherwise well-trained dogs. Poor recall comes from one of two places: your dog doesn't see you as the one worth returning to, or coming back to you simply hasn't been reliably worth their while so far.
The mechanics are deliberately strict. Say the command once. If nothing happens, a small tug on the long line, then the command once more. Never a third time. Repeating the word is exactly what devalues it, and you can hear the result in any Sydney park on a Sunday: come here, come here, come on, come here, until the word means nothing at all. If your dog still doesn't come all the way in, walk them in and walk them on the line like a lead for five minutes.
For the line itself, twenty metres of plain rope from Bunnings does the job. Don't buy anything fancy. Drop it and use foot pressure rather than hauling on it, and cut it down from twenty to fifteen to ten as reliability improves. Keep the full twenty for fetch, because ten metres is gone the moment you throw.
Then rotate what happens when they arrive. Food, then affection, then a toy, then occasionally nothing special at all. A dog who always gets a treat is coming for the treat. Rotation leaves a whisper in the back of their head that something good might be waiting, and that whisper is what holds up when your dog is already running the other way.
A handful of things quietly wreck recall, and I see all of them most weeks:
- Going straight from the house to an open park with no long line in between.
- Only calling your dog at the end of the walk. They learn quickly that "come" means the fun is finished.
- Calling them out of the middle of play, which is the hardest ask there is and the fastest way to teach a dog that ignoring you works.
- Running towards a dog who has panicked and bolted. Run the other way and they'll almost always follow you.
- Using the recall word as a general direction cue as well. Give the vague version its own word.
Never call your dog and then do something they dislike, so no calling them over for a bath or the nail clippers. Go and collect them calmly instead. And never call a dog you're about to isolate. Recall has to end well every single time, or it stops working on the day you genuinely need it. Building a reliable come goes through the long line progression step by step.
What the six foundation commands deliberately leave out
Loose lead walking sits outside the list on purpose. It's less a command than a whole walk structure, built on stop, start and change of direction rather than on a lure, and it has its own build worth reading separately in teaching loose lead walking to a puppy.
Leave it is the other obvious absence. It's a situational cue taught in context, and it gets needed almost entirely in high-arousal moments, which is why it earns a piece of its own: teaching leave it.
And command training doesn't fix behaviour problems. A reactive dog with a flawless Sit is still a reactive dog, because reactivity is a threshold and leadership problem. Different job, different approach, and worth knowing before you spend six weeks drilling cues at a dog who needs something else.
Want help putting this into practice?
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Upcoming puppy schools in Sydney
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Frequently asked questions
Q: What order should I teach the six foundation commands in?
A: Sit first, then Down, because Down is taught from a Sit. The release word comes in alongside both, since every held command needs an ending. Stay before Wait, always. Recall runs on its own track from day one and never really stops.
Q: Do I need a clicker to teach these properly?
A: No. A marker word or a clicker sharpens your timing, and the marker has to land within one to two seconds of the behaviour to mean anything. Beyond that window your dog is learning a random association rather than the command.
Q: How long should a training session be?
A: Three to five minutes, several times a day, beats one long session every time. Puppies in particular fatigue fast and habituate faster, and a session that runs past the point of attention teaches the wrong lesson.
