Seven works on "Down" - Part 6 of Training Time

Little Seven and I have been busy!  He's really rocking: "go to mat", "hand targeting" and "look". We practice all of these skills on a daily basis and he loves training time.

I try to find opportunities for the two of us to practice outside of our house and in places where I can hopefully manage the environment.  We've practiced at the vet and then of course at our weekly dog class.  This series of video is outside on our deck.  Why chose this location?  It's outside so we have some noise/visual distractions and it's a new training space for us.  Sorry in advance for the lighting issues.

 

As I mentioned , Seven and I have been taking  a wonderful dog class and here's the first post about our class:  Another reason to love New Rattitude

In our first class we went over how to teach sit and down. Seven has quickly figured out sit however, down is a tough one for him.  I've always struggled with teaching "down" so it may be more about me than Seven!

At class I asked our trainer Ruth LaRocque for some help as I was struggling and no big suprise, ths was making learning tough for Seven.   Luring and Shaping hadn't been working so, Ruth gave me a fabulous tip as you will soon see.

When we start training, we always warm up which usually takes a couple minutes. This is helpful for both of us to get our timing down and practice skills we are both pretty good at!

Then I start with the luring and shapping into a down position.  You can see it's a real struggle for both of us.

 

Next I added a prop - my leg! This was the tip that Ruth gave us.  Notice I'm NOT pushing my leg down on Seven - it does move as he goes under and rubs my leg.  He has complete choice of moving in, under or away from my leg.  As I lure him under my leg he naturally goes down and that's what I am "marking" with the clicker.   

I was thrilled that this worked so well and many thanks to Ruth for this great training tip! 

We kept at this a couple more times and then we had a distractor (a crow landing on the gutter above us).  The good news is that Seven was able to show some impulse control and not go after the bird.  However, this was a big distractor for Seven. We attempted the down with a prop a few more times and then switched to a easy skill to get him back in the game!       

Part of the learning/teaching process is being aware of how the environment is impacting your dog. When I say environment that's anything that is going on.  In this case a few things in the environment are: me, my leg, the deck, the hat I'm wearing, the crow, the noise on the street and many more.   If your dog is struggling look to the environment to see what has changed and then adjust to what you figure out.  If you don't know or can't figure it out that's when seeking consultation/training can be invaluable.  This can save you and your dog a lot of frustration, it can open up new ways of thinking about training while strengthening the relationship with your dog.   

So, many thanks to our fabulous trainer Ruth - I have no doubt that shortly we will fade out the lure and my leg and Seven will perfect his "down!".

Stay tuned for the next training post where Seven shows you another skill he's learning "Leave It".