I think I'm doing it wrong

jmejiaa · 02-09-2010, 03:42 PM

Hey all,

Well Sasha has come a long way. We are doing great with training.

She is good* with sit,down,stay,wait(for release command, like wait before going into doors, coming out of crate etc.) and yesterday I thought her paw in literally 20 minutes.

*She knows what she has to do for the treat but I haven't been able to get the word 100%. She will sit most of the time, will not go down on cue, stays and waits most of the time and the paw she is getting better.

my question is, how do you guys start introducing the word and for how long. I sometimes just make her go down over and over saying down with the food but is she really getting it? I dunno. I don't want to teach anything new until I can say down without food and have her go down for example. I feel she will just forget the things I've been teaching.

**MY MIKADO** · 02-09-2010, 06:05 PM

What I do is I give a treat every time for the first few days. I start out with saying sit and holding the treat over thier nose. Then after a few days of this I give a treat everyother time and I add more praise for a job well done. Then once they are sitting with or without a treat I give the treat like every third or fourth time and gett really crazy with the praise. I aslo tell them down in odd place like the bathroom in the car when I walk in the room. Even while we are playing I will give a command. My dogs listen really good adn they love praise. I only use treats now when I need to keep Vendetta focused on me at flyball.

**StaffyDaddy** · 02-09-2010, 06:37 PM

You gotta wean off the treats eventually. Jaime's parents' dog EXPECTS treats and I hate that. Other than for the occasional biscuit, she does what she pleases.

Mikado gave some good advice. Start giving more verbal praise and less treats, and at first make it a big deal when you don't use a treat. Your dog should love to please you just to please you, that is one of the characteristics of this breed.

RileyRoo · 02-09-2010, 06:39 PM

when I was teaching Riley down I had the treat and I would lower it until she downed then said down and treated. I repeated and when she downed i would say Down and treat again. I also have hand signals now and can do the signal and have her down without vocalizing the command.
I have also used the action before the word but i like using the action and adding the word when they first do it.
with any trick you want to get the right action before saying the command...

example:

when training a dog to down you want that belly to fully touch the ground before you give the down command this will connect the action with the word and the dog will know that when you say down and she goes down that she is gonna get that treat.

You don't want to say down, down, down, down.
it should be one sold, DOWN and she should go down.

once learned she wont forget it. you just have to reinforce the training everyday about 15 min exercises to insure the training stays fresh. you have to continue this everyday.

I do it everyday with Riley. infact I did the crawl command and mind you I havent done that in 2 months and she did exactly what I told her to do with flying colors...she didn't forget. and eventually she wont need treats. I use more praise then treating but when we first start a trick I like to use something of high interest to her.

**StaffyDaddy** · 02-09-2010, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RileyRoo

when I was teaching Riley down I had the treat and I would lower it until she downed then said down and treated. I repeated and when she downed i would say Down and treat again. I also have hand signals now and can do the signal and have her down without vocalizing the command.
I have also used the action before the word but i like using the action and adding the word when they first do it.
with any trick you want to get the right action before saying the command...

example:

when training a dog to down you want that belly to fully touch the ground before you give the down command this will connect the action with the word and the dog will know that when you say down and she goes down that she is gonna get that treat.

You don't want to say down, down, down, down.
it should be one sold, DOWN and she should go down.

once learned she wont forget it. you just have to reinforce the training everyday about 15 min exercises to insure the training stays fresh. you have to continue this everyday.

I do it everyday with Riley. infact I did the crawl command and mind you I havent done that in 2 months and she did exactly what I told her to do with flying colors...she didn't forget.

I'd even break the 15 minutes up randomly, just to switch it up. Also, training when a dog is hungry works really well. And Megan brings up a good point, you don't want to say the word before theyre touching, you want to say it AS they touch the ground. Doing it too late can slow down the process too. Hand signals should be started when you start incorperating the verbal command, and make sure you are consistently using the same tone, word, and signal. At least while they are learning. Down was one of the commands Chino did not want any part of but now I can just point down and he'll down, I can say it from upstairs and he'll down. I can say it in the shower and he'll down LOL. Consistency is everything.