How to Train Your Chihuahua Dog to Stay

Of all the commands you can teach your Chihuahua, 'stay' may be the most important. Teaching your pup to stay might stop him from bolting out an open door or worse yet, darting into the road and being run over. No matter how you look at it, asking your pup to stay in one place for an extended period of time goes against his nature. This makes the training that much harder, but when you add in the fact that Chihuahuas are exceptionally stubborn, this can only make it harder than it should be.

Bear in mind that 'stay' is one of the four basic commands every dog should know. In fact, until your pup has mastered these commands, he will not be ready to learn any of the more advanced tricks or behaviors. Tough training or not, be sure to be patient and never scold your pup for getting it wrong. You might hurt his feelings and make it even harder to accomplish your training goals. 

Far too many dogs have the bad habit of bolting out the door every chance they get, jumping up on everyone, and chasing just about everything. Once you teach your pup to sit and stay, this should stop problems like this from happening. The idea is that once the training has been completed successfully, your pup will sit and stay in place until you release him.

Our training methods assume you have already taught your Chihauha to sit. The rest of the training involves teaching your pup to sit for an extended period of time. You can also use the 'down' position for this training. It depends on which one you prefer or in time you can teach him to stay in both positions. 

For the purposes of this training session, we are going to assume your pup already knows how to sit. You may find you need a few things to make the training go a little more smoothly, including:

• Treats:  For rewards and incentives.
  
• Quiet: A quiet place to train in, as any distractions will only make the job harder.
  
• Patience: You are going to need a huge supply of this.
  
• Time: You need to be able to dedicate approximately 15 minutes twice a day to this training if you want it to work.
  

The big thing here is to be very patient. Chihuahuas are highly intelligent dogs, but at the same time, they are very stubborn, which can make them hard to train.