Send to the mat

The step up from go-to-place — your dog covers ten metres to the mat alone, from any angle and past temptations, without you taking a single step that way.

🐾🐾🐾🐾 · ~14 days · 6 min/session

Learn first: Go to your place

Step-by-step

1. Check your starting point

   Send your dog to the mat from the distance at which go-to-place already works without fail — usually two or three steps. From here on there is one rule: your feet stay planted. If your dog only sets off when you step that way too, you aren’t sending yet — you’re leading.

   💡 Mark the spot you stand on with a piece of tape on the floor. Distance grows in metres, not by feel — otherwise it creeps up unnoticed and your dog quietly starts failing.

2. A metre at a time

   Add one metre at a time and keep score: five correct sends in a row earn another metre; two misses in a row cost two metres. Early on, place a treat on the mat before you send so your dog has something to run towards. Work in a straight line, ideally down a hallway.

3. Sending from an angle

   Step off the straight line: first stand at forty-five degrees to the mat, then out to the side of it, finally so that the mat ends up behind your dog. Dogs read your shoulders, not your finger — turn your whole body towards the mat and extend your arm along the line of travel. Halve the distance every time you change the angle.

   💡 Angle and distance go up separately, never together. Change the angle and you go back to a distance your dog already owns.

4. Past temptations and obstacles

   Put a food bowl two metres to the side of the route to the mat and send your dog. If they detour, the temptation was too close — move it further away and shorten the distance. Then complicate the route: around a chair, through a doorway, past a toy left on the floor.

5. Sending on the move and outdoors

   Walk slowly past the mat with your dog and send them without stopping — a send on the move is the one that earns its keep in real life. Then take the exercise into the garden or the park with the same mat. Outdoors, halve the distance: grass, wind and smells make a familiar mat almost invisible.

   💡 In unfenced places work on a long line — your dog is running away from you and one startled cat is all it takes. The line trails loose; it is never yanked.

6. One send, one word

   The final test: you give the cue once, you don’t step forward and you don’t repeat the gesture — and your dog goes. They stay on the mat until they hear “Free”. Send in calm moments too, not only when the doorbell rings, so the word doesn’t become tied to tension.

Common mistakes

• Stepping towards the mat while you send — the dog gets used to waiting for you to lead and the distance never grows.
• Adding distance and angle at the same time. Every new angle is a new problem and starts up close.
• Repeating the cue and waving ever bigger until the dog moves — that teaches them to wait for the third asking.
• Sending only in tense moments — the doorbell, guests, an argument in the room. The cue gets tied to the tension and the dog stops responding to it.

Problems & solutions

My dog sets off but stops halfway and turns back to look at me.

The distance has grown faster than the confidence. Go back to the distance where your dog was flawless and pre-place a treat on the mat before every send — with the reward in sight they finish the trip. Then fade the pre-placed treat out again.

Straight ahead they go instantly, but when I stand off to the side of the mat they run the wrong way.

Your dog travels along your shoulder line, not your finger. Turn your whole body towards the mat, extend your arm low along the line of travel, and drop back to two steps of distance. Then widen the angle by a few degrees a session, not by half a room.

They reach the mat but overshoot it, or land with only their front paws on it.

Speed has outrun accuracy. Pay only for four paws on the mat and drop the treat between the front paws, never beyond the mat. A bigger mat with clear edges for a few days also helps while the aim tidies up.

Reward ideas

Small treats that throw accurately and don’t roll off the mat — dried meat or kibble from the daily ration. Give a jackpot of several pieces one after another for the longest sends, and a chew on the mat for a calm settle.