Re-teaching DOWN: L1

After the dog has learned the Down behavior, in Before Moving Down, Sue writes:

"Play with the behavior. Teach it from the beginning in different rooms, indoors and outdoors."

Teach it from the beginning. That one little sentence is often overlooked and, instead, we just have the dog do the behavior in different places. But when we consistently teach it from the beginning, it makes the behavior stronger and stronger.

Teach it from the beginning. Here we were with Mallory and Landry, definitely in a different room. What better place, then, to re-teach the Down behavior. We went back to the beginning.

TEACHING THE DOWN BEHAVIOR

"You can also lure a Down, but that's easier to do when she already knows how to Sit."

Mallory has a wonderful Sit. A default Sit. She knows in her soul that if you sit, something good will follow. So Mallory sits.......and waits to be told or to be shown what to do next.

Instead of waiting and waiting to capture Mallory lying down on her own, we are going to expedite the learning and lure her into a Down.

First, to "tell" Mallory that she can switch her focus from Sharon and work with Lynn, Lynn gives Rapid Fire Reinforcement and then the luring begins.

CRITERIA:

Mallory follows the food lure into a Down position

CRITERIA:

Steps: " Click when she does (lie down) and toss a treat between her paws so she can eat it without having to get up. Continue to click and toss every few seconds while she's still lying down."

Let's review what Sue says about luring in Steps

" From a Sit, hold a treat in your hand, put it right up to her nose so she can nibble it a bit, then very slowly move it down and then forward. If she rises out of the Sit, you moved your treat too far forward and not enough down. You're aiming for a spot on the floor slightly in front of her front paws."

Sharon's Down cue is a handsignal: bending down herself with her finger pointing to the floor.

Can you see where she is cueing Mallory instead of luring her?

What is the difference between cueing and luring?

Who is doing the work here?

Who is doing all the thinking?

A word of warning about luring

Steps again: "Be careful with luring – lure with the treat maybe five times, then make the same gesture with your empty hand. If the dog follows your hand and downs, click and treat. If she doesn't, lure with the treat maybe twice more, and try it without again. You're trying to get rid of the treat in your hand as quickly as possible."

We are training "a handful (of treats) at a time", giving Mallory a break each time that Sharon reloads her treat hand. Each of the above Flips was a session in itself and frequently Mallory went back into her tent while we worked with Landry.

Landry has a better understanding of volunteering behaviors, so he progressed through the training process of this particular behavior more rapidly and we were able to introduce the cue with him.


WHEN DO WE INTRODUCE THE CUE?

Steps: "When the dog is offering you the down that you want, clearly knowing that the offering will result in a click, you can begin to tell her the name of the behavior."

So Landry demonstrated his understanding of offering the behavior after (hypothetically) luring him into a down 50X. Mallory doesn't yet understand to offer the down on her own, so (again, hypothetically) she may need the explanation 100X before beginning to offer it on her own. Each dog is different.

Still volunteering the Sit.

We won't add ANY cue (handsignal or verbal) until Mallory begins to OFFER the Down on her own.