Training the Best Dog Ever by Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz

Author:Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Workman Publishing
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Keeping your dog’s focus will help you both navigate potentially dangerous distractions.

Skill 4: Down

Luring. Start with your dog in a sit in front of you. Lure by holding a treat between your fingertips, palm facing down, and sliding the treat slowly toward your dog’s chest. Keeping your dog’s attention on the treat, draw your hand down. When your dog touches down, mark “good down,” praise, and treat. Use hand signal only, no verbal cues. See Week Two.

Puppy Pushups. Cue your dog with your hand signal to sit, then down, then sit again. Mark each response (say “good” after every sit or down), and lavish the praise and reward with the food treat only after the full rep (one rep = sit, down, sit). As she becomes fluent, add complexity starting with an extra down at the end and building toward an extra Puppy Pushup before you give the reward. When your dog learns more cues and dog tricks, include them in the Puppy Pushups routine. See Week Three.

Adding the verbal cue. Lure your dog into the down and add the verbal cue as she starts to respond. Remember that you are establishing a link between the hand signal and the verbal cue, so that your dog understands that this behavior also has a name. See Week Four.

Incorporating the Verbal Cue with Puppy Pushups. When introducing all verbal cues the process is straightforward: After your dog understands your hand signal fluently, you are able to tag on a name. Once you have established the link between the visual and verbal cues, your dog will respond to both. Since your dog already knows how to do Puppy Pushups, tag on the verbal cues “sit” and “down” along with the visual hand signals. See Week Four.

Down and Sit At a Distance. Add distance one foot at a time, mixing random verbal and hand cues for sit and down. Initially, reward with treats at each small increase of distance (go to your dog and treat her for each success), and then begin to withdraw treats. Also combine this with longer stay exercises (see below). New skill.

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