New way to do a lie down

Smudge said:
They taught down a different way then I learned it. They walked the dog into a down position by placing a treat between it's legs and then holding a long treat in your hands. The dogs walk backwards trying to get the treat and end up in a down position.
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Yes this is the way we teach a sphinx down some call it the ready down, the down with the legs folded under the body. It does a couple things for obedience training. It provides a position for the dog to get up quickly on the drop on recall and signal exercises. It also conditions the dog to down with its weight going backward so they drop more quickly on the drop on recall and signals and do not have a tendence to creep forward on the signal down which can cost you points put to an NQ depending how bad it is. You can teach them other ways to down but you will need to reteach it later for the advanced exercises. Been there done that with Justice. Much easier to teach it once in the beginning.:smile2:

The signal exercise always go heeling into stand, down ,sit ,come, finish.
 
Justicemom said:
Yes this is the way we teach a sphinx down some call it the ready down, the down with the legs folded under the body. It does a couple things for obedience training. It provides a position for the dog to get up quickly on the drop on recall and signal exercises. It also conditions the dog to down with its weight going backward so they drop more quickly on the drop on recall and signals and do not have a tendence to creep forward on the signal down which can cost you points put to an NQ depending how bad it is. You can teach them other ways to down but you will need to reteach it later for the advanced exercises. Been there done that with Justice. Much easier to teach it once in the beginning.:smile2:

The signal exercise always go heeling into stand, down ,sit ,come, finish.
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Except Smudge is no fool. :lol: It didn't take him long to find a way out of it. He was on leash, and he would just keep backing up. :eek2: Never could get him to learn it that way.
 
Justicemom said:
Stand him in front of a wall so he can't keep backing up.
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That might be ok for home, but the way our obedience class was set up - there were no walls around. It's set up kind of like a ring (pictures here: http://www.oakgrovetc.com/services). Ours was the middle ring away from wall. There's three different sections there. We've been working some more though, so I'm hoping that by the time we go back to class I won't have to worry about backing him into anything, because he will already know it. :biggrin2:
 
4H taught another way to teach down. Put your dog in a sit position then put a treat in your hand in a pointing position with the treat in your palm and move your hand in front of the dogs paws then pull your hand away from his paws. a down then out motion. the nose follows the treat and they end up in a down position. The hand signal is pointing down with your hand.
 
Lynne said:
4H taught another way to teach down. Put your dog in a sit position then put a treat in your hand in a pointing position with the treat in your palm and move your hand in front of the dogs paws then pull your hand away from his paws. a down then out motion. the nose follows the treat and they end up in a down position. The hand signal is pointing down with your hand.
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No hand signals allowed in my obedience class. :wink2:

There was a bit of an argument on that strategy between the two different instructors there. One argued it was fine to do it your way. The other said putting them in a sit before teaching them down was more trouble than it was worth. I have to agree. Smudge now lays 50% of the time when I ask him to sit. :dead:
 
Smudge said:
No hand signals allowed in my obedience class. :wink2:

There was a bit of an argument on that strategy between the two different instructors there. One argued it was fine to do it your way. The other said putting them in a sit before teaching them down was more trouble than it was worth. I have to agree. Smudge now lays 50% of the time when I ask him to sit. :dead:
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I've found that my dogs both go through a period when learning a new command where they use that command as a substitute for others. This happened with down (they would down instead of sit) and bang (they would bang instead of down). I'm not sure if it's because we practice one thing more than the other, or they know the high reward comes with the newer command. But after 1-2 more training sessions on the old command (in your case, the sit) they were able to discriminate between the two.
 
Smudge said:
No hand signals allowed in my obedience class. :wink2:

There was a bit of an argument on that strategy between the two different instructors there. One argued it was fine to do it your way. The other said putting them in a sit before teaching them down was more trouble than it was worth. I have to agree. Smudge now lays 50% of the time when I ask him to sit. :dead:
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There are so many opinions in obedience training. I teach down from a stand first and then later when they know sit and down from a stand , I teach it down from a sit. I find that I don't have as many signal exercise ,drop on recall issues later. Also many people don't want their dogs thinking about downing on the sit stay. I haven't notice a difference there. Shelties are always thinking about laying down on the sit stay I swear.:wink2:

We teach elementary hand signals along with voice commands right from the beginning and than fade the hand signal and use only vocie. That way it is easily to go to just hand signals later as it is already paired with the behavior.
 
Justicemom said:
We teach elementary hand signals along with voice commands right from the beginning and than fade the hand signal and use only vocie. That way it is easily to go to just hand signals later as it is already paired with the behavior.
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I went into a novice class without EVER having done obedience before. Smudge had never been to a class before. Looking back on it I would 100% do a basic manners class before doing novice.
 
our trainer at sheltie school started Cranberry on down from stand so he'd lay straight down. we had to redo sit since the previous week at Petsmart puppy class we did the lure over the head to sit instead of the nice tuck sit that trainer said we'd need for obedience. he's not bad but still lots to learn :wink2:
 
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