The World's most dramatic down

Did Zip Tie's first shaping session (husband is taking over now, just was teaching him the game). We shaped a down. It was rather adorable. He caught onto the fact that I wanted a low head right away and then kind of got stuck. So here is a video of the world's most dramatic down, edited to keep you all from falling asleep.

[YOUTUBE]iLwzqz035CM[/YOUTUBE]

His down is so cute!! Lol he is such a quick learner!!

..but can we just take a minute and appreciate that Zinga spent the whole session balancing on a big rubber BALL?!? :rofl1:

Aliens I tell you!
ALIENS!

Too cute! I love how Zinga and Zuma are just chilling in the background. That was always one of the issues I had with Blackie and Rose during training sessions, as they'd get all up in each other's business. *Makes note to self to shape a go to mat cue for multiple dog sessions* (Or, in Zinga's case, I guess it is a ball! ROFL)

I remember when I was teaching Chloe how to down. I lured, and she was very enthusiastic about it. To this day, she doesn't slowly fold into a down...she launches herself into a down at full speed whilst barking. :lol-sign: (Although I worked with her on the barking portion and now she only does it when super excited and READY TO GO.)

I rather miss my dog. *sigh*

Hahha, Zip Tie is ADORABLE but I was also way distracted by Zinga chilling on the ball.

Ya, there are other ways to train a down. I chose to shape Zuma and Zinga's and now Zip's for a couple of reasons. The most important is that it helps to teach the shaping game to them, making it easier to shape behaviors in the future. The down gets quicker and turns into a nice sphinx down as the intermediate behaviors start to dissolve. Both Zuma and zinga have incredibly fast downs and this is how they learned.

and yet you don't address the fact that your dogs have been accused of being aliens..

GUILTY!
I KNEW IT!

Silly Fran, they are chickens, not aliens. Zinga is roosting right in the video.

This. Roosting is a natural behavior.

Also, this is multitasking. Working balance while I'm working the other dogs. And she's pretty darn cute up there.

I seriously envy your multi tasking abilities. I am so bad at trying to shape something and keep enough focus on Didgie or Traveler in their spot. I either miss things to mark for with the working dog or forget to reward the staying dog.