It’s important that when you initially receive your placement and put it together that you habituate your dog to it. Make sure your dog is not afraid of getting up on it before you begin your training. We do this through a process of habituation. We want to make sure that the placemat is completely neutralized before attempting to train the place cue.
We neutralize the place mat by leaving it in the dogs immediate living space and placing their favorite rewards , chew bones or toys on it throughout the day to garner interest. We allow the dog to freely get on and off during this process never trying to force them on. We want to create a positive association to the mat, and check that getting on the fabric or elevated mat is not an intimidating task for your dog. Some dogs are really fazed by new things in their environment, if your dog is one of those I would urge you to spend some time habituating the place mat.
If your dog is of happy-go-lucky nature with a character baseline that allows him to interact with new things in his environment without worry, you may not need to spend much time on habituation. Take note how your dog interacts with the object when you first put it down , this will give you great insight on how to move forth.