Play dead...

[Laurelin]

Okay so Summer's new trick we learned today was play dead. So the cue is 'bang' of course. She picked it up in one try really easily but the problem is I broke it down into parts. First- sit, second- down, third- roll onto her side. So as it stands I have to say 'bang' 3 times to get her to 'die'. How would you work on weeding out the extra two cues? I guess she could just be really hard to 'kill' lol.

[lizzybeth727]

I would first cue her to down, then give her the "bang" cue. Do that many many times until she really has the behavior perfectly. Then start with her in a sit, and just give the bang cue; if she doesn't do it, try more of the down-bangs, then go back to sit-bang. Eventually she will get it from a sit, so then practice many many of those. Then do the same thing with her standing first.

Basically you're backchaining the behavior - teach the last part of the sequence first, then build the rest of the sequence backward from there. If you've trained the backchain correctly, you should be able to give only the end cue and the dog will do the entire chain.

[lisabobisa]

When I taught Dom bang she did already know sit and down (just like Summer I assume) so I never really told her to do those. If I have a treat she usually sits automatically so I lured her down without saying it and lured her to the side. So it helped that she already knew the first parts but the new trick came as one motion. I'm not sure if that helps at this point or not but it seemed to work pretty well. If she ever doesn't do it after me saying bang once, I go ahead and lure her all the way there.

The only problem I have is sometimes she rolls over once she drops. Maybe she's just dodging the bullet.

[yassy]

I usually label the behavior (put cue) after my dog leaned the behavior. Until she does behavior I like,I say nothing.