The first five commands every clever little dog should know

Small dogs get a reputation for being stubborn or hard to train. They're not. They're clever, sometimes more clever than the people teaching them, and they learn faster when the lessons are short, the rewards are good, and the rules are consistent.

Before you teach a Maltipoo to recall across a park, or a Yorkie to leave a chicken bone alone on the pavement, you need five quiet little behaviours in place at home. These five are the foundation everything else builds on. Spend a week on them and you'll be surprised how much your clever little dog already wanted to know.

A note on technique before we start. Every command on this list is taught with reward, not pressure. You're not pushing your dog into the position or yanking her out of one. You're showing her what works, marking the exact moment she does it, and paying her in something she actually cares about, like small soft treats. A "marker word" (a clean "yes" the moment she gets it right) speeds up every step on this list. Treat it like the camera shutter, click the second she does the right thing, then deliver the treat.

1. Their name

Most dogs know their name as a sound that means "something is about to happen." That's not the same as knowing it as a command: a sound that means "turn and look at me, please." This is the most useful behaviour you can teach your small dog, because it underwrites every other command on this list.

How to practice:
1. Sit in a quiet room with a small handful of treats.
2. Say her name once calmly, normally, no extra volume.
3. The instant she looks at you, mark ("yes") and treat.
4. Look away. Wait. Repeat 5–10 times, then stop.
5. Practice across rooms, at different times of day, with you facing different directions.

Common mistake: repeating the name. "Lillie. Lillie. LILLIE." If she's not responding, you don't say it again, but instead you make the situation easier. Step closer, get a better treat, lower the distractions. Saying her name three times teaches her that it means "the third one is the one I should listen to."

Small-dog tweak: get down to her level for the first sessions. Small dogs hear less of the world from your eye height; kneeling makes the connection feel more obvious to her.

2. Sit

Sit is a parking command. It's also where most people start because dogs offer it freely on their own.

How to practice:
1. Hold a small treat just above her nose.
2. Slowly move it back over her head, towards her tail.
3. As her nose tilts up, her bum tilts down.
4. The instant her bum touches the floor, mark and treat.
5. After a few repetitions, add the word "sit" the moment she's lowering and not before.

Common mistake: saying "sit" for ten minutes while your dog stares at you. The word doesn't mean anything yet, she has to learn the motion first, then attach the word later. Earn the behaviour, then name it.

Small-dog tweak: hold the treat closer to her nose than you think you should. Small dogs lose track of treats held even slightly too high. If she's jumping up instead of sitting, you're holding it half a centimetre too far away.

3. Down

Down is the calm position. It also gives you a way to ask a wired-up small dog to settle without raising your voice.

How to practice:

1. Ask for a sit.
2. Hold a treat at her nose, then slowly lower it to the floor.
3. Once it's on the floor, draw it slowly along the floor away from her.
4. Her elbows will follow.
5. The moment her elbows touch the floor, mark and treat.
6. Add the word "down" once the motion is smooth.

Common mistake: pushing your dog into a down with your hand. Don't. She learns to resist your hand instead of learning the command, and small dogs particularly dislike being pushed.

Small-dog tweak: practice on a soft surface like a rug, a folded blanket, a yoga mat. Hard wooden floors are uncomfortable for small breeds and she'll resist the position not because she doesn't understand it but because it doesn't feel good.

4. Stay

Stay is the moment your dog learns that holding a position pays off. It's the building block for every safety command later, including stopping at a road.

How to practice:
1. Ask for a sit.
2. Hold up a flat hand, palm towards her, and say "stay."
3. Wait one second. Mark and treat while she's still in the sit.
4. Build slowly: 2 seconds, then 4, then 8, then 15.
5. Once duration is solid, add distance: take one step back, then two, then walk a small circle.
6. Always release with a clear word ("okay" or "free") before she breaks the stay on her own.

Common mistake: rewarding only when she gets up and comes to you. The reward needs to come while she's still holding position, not after she's moved. Otherwise you're teaching her to hold briefly and break, the opposite of stay.

Small-dog tweak: build duration before distance. A small dog with any separation worry may panic when you step back even one pace. Build the seconds first, ease into distance later, and never make her feel left behind.

5. Look at me

This is the command that turns into focus on walks, recall in the park, and the first half-second of every safety command. If your dog can break her attention from a distraction and look at your eyes, you have time to give the next instruction. Without that half-second, the command never lands.

How to practice:
1. Hold a treat at your eye level (or, for very small dogs, hold the treat in your fingers near your mouth).
2. The instant her eyes meet yours, mark and treat.
3. Add the cue word "look" or "watch" once she's offering eye contact reliably.
4. Practice while sitting on the sofa, at the door, in the kitchen, in the garden.
5. Add small distractions later: a toy on the floor, a quiet TV, you facing slightly away.

Common mistake: holding the treat where you're looking, not where she's looking. If you're standing and she's 25 cm tall, she sees your knees and the treat, not your eyes. Get on the floor for the first sessions.

Small-dog tweak: small clever dogs often master eye contact almost too well, and start staring fixedly. That's not focus, that's tension. Look away regularly so she learns the loop is "check in, get rewarded, go back to being a dog."

A weekly rhythm

Five commands in a week sounds ambitious, but you're not aiming for mastery. You're aiming for understanding. Spend two short sessions a day, three to five minutes each, no longer and rotate one command per session. By the end of the week you'll know which ones your dog has cracked and which need another week.

Three small rules across all five:

1. Stop while she's winning. End every session on a success, not a struggle.
2. Treats are tiny and good. A pea-sized piece of chicken beats a whole biscuit. You'll go through twenty in a session at first; that's fine.
3. Keep sessions short. Small dogs lose focus before you do. Three minutes is better than ten.

What's next

Once these five sit comfortably at home, the next layer is loose-leash walking, the daily skill that quietly improves every walk for the rest of your dog's life. After that comes the harder, real-world stuff: stopping at a road, emergency recall, and "leave it" for the inevitable chicken bone on the pavement.

We've packed those three commands into a free Small-Dog Safety Pack: three commands every clever little dog should know to stay safe.

→ [Get the free Small-Dog Safety Pack]

xo, Lillie