Stay
One of the best commands for impulse control commands. "Stay," "Leave it." and "Drop it" can be life saving commands in lots of different situations. Stay is also particularly useful if you are training your dog to "come" but don't have someone to help you hold on to your dog.
1. Position your dog directly in front of you and tell them to "sit."
2. Make sure they are making eye contact, use your "look" command if they aren't.
3. After you have established eye contact, place your hand in a "stop" gesture with your palm facing your dog hold this position for a quick 2 seconds and make sure your furry friend is looking at your hand.
4. Drop your hand to your side and wait for another 2 seconds.
a. If your dog holds eye contact with you for the entire time, say "yes"
b. If your dog looks away but stays sitting make a kissing or tongue clicking noise, and say "yes" as soon as they reestablish eye contact.
Note: Eye contact is integral for this command, we want our dog to keep their attention on us until we release them from their stay.
5. As you say "yes," move your hand down in an offering of a treat, should look similar to your "touch" body language. This should cause your dog to walk over to you.
6. Before rewarding your dog practice gently grabbing their collar with one hand, and then rewarding with the other. This will help get your dog comfortable with being held onto, so if you are outside and need your dog to come to you, they will come all the way and let you secure them.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 for practice. Slowly ramp up the amount of time your dog is staying, practice at 2 seconds, then 3, 4, 5, 6... up to 10. Once they've mastered a 10 second stay you can ramp it up even more by asking for 15, 20, 25, etc.
8. After your dog has mastered a 10 second stay. Practice their stay at different distances. Put your dog into a stay then take a step or two back. If they walk towards you when you move back, say "nuh-uh," re-position them, and try again. Reduce the length of time you make them stay to just a few seconds when you are starting to add distance.