Doing a "Down" without a lure

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coopersmom

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Casey has improved on his downs. In his previous training at Petsmart he would go down with a lure but pop right back up. Now we're going to a different training school and he will stay down once he goes down, but...he won't go down without either a lure or a gentle tug on his collar or leash snap. I can sometimes actually see him "thinking" about doing it, but so far he hasn't done it on his own. He will be 11 months on March 11. Teacher says I'm doing everything correctly with it. We need this so badly. I really want to get his CGC and then hopefully do Rally or Agility. However, if we can't get the "down", we can't do any of it.

Any suggestions?
 
first never do any collar popping...
Second, I would make sure to be training ONE behaviour at a time, don't do down and then expect a LONG down at the same time.
In other words IF your dog knows how to down, then you're not luring anymore. However, now working on duration, which is another behaviour. in order to make it more palatable and rewardable for your dog to STAY in a down, you have to treat and reward it like a new behavior.
Meaning, marking the stay every few seconds saying GOOD down, and immediately reward with a tiny piece of cheese or whatever is REALLY good between the paws while they're STILL holding the down. SO first is mark clearly the behaviour you want, the stay down, then work on duration, don't do both at same time :D

do it for a few seconds longer each time, but always end at a success, before s/he can break out of a stay say the release word, and only rarely if ever reward the release at all, unless it is a down at a distance and then you want to reward the coming to you, a few times, if warranted to ensure coming directly lol
But heavily reward the down position, so the dog feels that is the best thing ever... THEN you can add distraction and again LOWER your criteria and start slowly again and remember to reward heavily in the position again.
 
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I'm teaching that to my puppy right now. He'll do it without a lure about once in ten, and I super-reward those. I first taught him from a sit, with just one finger between his shoulder blades to "help" him remember. Now, he's doing it from a stand without help, but only the front end. As soon as his back end drops, he gets food.

I train my dogs without collars, so no leash popping here. And frankly, most dogs have a great opposition reflex, so if you are pulling down on a collar, they will pull against it. I'm not entirely sure how effective it is.
 
Doing a "Down"without a lure

coopersmom said:
Casey has improved on his downs. In his previous training at Petsmart he would go down with a lure but pop right back up. Now we're going to a different training school and he will stay down once he goes down, but...he won't go down without either a lure or a gentle tug on his collar or leash snap. I can sometimes actually see him "thinking" about doing it, but so far he hasn't done it on his own. He will be 11 months on March 11. Teacher says I'm doing everything correctly with it. We need this so badly. I really want to get his CGC and then hopefully do Rally or Agility. However, if we can't get the "down", we can't do any of it.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Well you can do Agility because you don't need a down.Just a relaible sit, stay and come.I do know that in USDAA you do need a down on the table.He will get it and you will do great.
 
This is a timely post. My Tres will not do a down/stay without a treat.

Tres is going to ASSA Nationals in April for his first Rally O (novice). He does everything else expected of him, except for the down/stay.

His handler gave me homework yesterday - we have to practice this. Will use the tips mentioned.

Thanks!
 
Can you use treats in Rally?

Last night Casey actually moved his front paws like he was going to do a down....but he didn't. Maybe tonight will be the "golden moment". I may just cry when he does it.
 
Downs are still a struggle for Ruutu. To be honest, I really don't practice downs that often with him since it's not needed anymore in AKC Agility, but I do want to eventually get him into Rally once he calms down. I lore him with a treat or a hand that he thinks has a treat in it, but doesn't. Then when he's down I give him that treat then I tell him to stay and count a little then tell him "good down" and then we get up and do it all over again. I was really impressed that while I was practicing jumping him and made him stay in front of a jump he went 3 minutes without moving. It's all about practice and doing it over and over again. If you don't want him to immediately pop up, teach him to stay (or wait), otherwise he's doing what you told him to do. I teach stay first in a sit though.
 
Our trainer is insane nutso on the downs -- down from sit heeling/halt, down in front of you at end of long line, moving down, down verbal, down hand signal next to you or facing you (both hand signals), you name it, if she can add a down, she adds a down. Walk away and back, walk around to the heel position, step over the dog side to side or front to back, dance around and clap in front of the dog, throw toys over the head, put treats on the ground and leave it, walk away and call from the down. We have down nailed just out of sheer overkill. It is because the trainer believes that there are times putting a dog in a down from whatever it may be doing is safer than a recall so she teaches that big time. On the upside, we are SO going to shine with the downs in rally!

We lured at first but if I have a treat in hand she pops up to a sit. If there is no treat in hand but the word stay she stays put while I fish for a treat in the pouch and give to her while still down then the word stay again until I am ready to give another command like heel or release.

Go for overkill and do different things while down and you will get there.
 
Casey finally did a down on command last night!!! He had been thinking about it on Saturday night. Sunday night he did move his front legs like he was going down, but he didn't finish. Last night I gave the command, he sit there maybe 20 seconds, then slowly went into a down!!!

now to get him to do another.
 
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