"Down"

Okay, I tiaght Buster "drop" for his lay down word, I was recently told to work on an emergency down. I have been for a couple of weeks now (before that he only new drop from a sit position) I decided to change the word to down while I was teaching him to down from a stand so as not to confuse him and becuase I don't like the word drop so much anymore.

So far I've only been doing "down" from him standing near me, tonight I went out and ran through it with him, practiced getting him to down while he was running towards me, at first he started diving out with his hands getting lower to the ground so that he was downed right in front of me but I did get him to drop from wherever while he was coming towards me pretty quick, he was just too cute.

I tried throwing a treataway from me to get him to head the other way, but when I told him to down he did that "getting lower to the ground" thing till he was right in front of it and on the ground. I tried it again by just sending him in front of me and telling him to down but he'd flip around and down facing me.

So this is half brag, half question I guess. Shoudl I just keep running along side him then dowing him fast and working on him staying from there?


On the other hand, his stays are getting very impressive (considering what they used to be) I used to only use them to back up when training other things, so at best they were only about 10 seconds long.
In the last 2 weeks he's up to a minute+ in both sit and down stay (proud again)
tonight I tried both with him while I walked to the other end of the verandah and mucked aroudn int eh laundry setting up dog beds, out of sight. And he got 100%

Hmm... hope this post makes sense. I mgiht try to get some video tomorow of his downs.

I got distance on Meg's emergency downs by leashing her to a solid object once she had a good verbal down. That way I could back up a step or two without her following me, then give the cue. I think I taught her, without meaning to, that "lie down" means lie down directly in front of me. I had to make it impossible for her to get there before she figured it out. She now gets that it means to lie down wherever she is, not come running to me as fast as possible and lie down.

I start with the dog an a leash, so he's not so far from me anyway and he's not running, and it's easier for me to help him with the down in a timely fashion. I generally will take a couple steps towards the dog after saying "down". That often stops the dog's movement towards me.

I agree with corgi, I step toward the dog and also bend over toward them, it usually gets them to stop away from you.

Thankyou

Huh, I just realized.... you COULD call this "spacial pressure" - except that we apparently don't use that tool here.