Down

Steps

Phase 1 - Acquisition (Learning and Luring) 

1. Use a treat in your hand to lure while making the dog sit, luring your dog into a down position by putting the treat close to his nose and moving it down to the ground slowly. If you move your hand down too quickly or too far away from his mouth he may give up and lose interest. Go straight down and keep your hand in a cupped fashion. (You may need to experiment with different angles and approaches).

2. As soon as their elbows hit the ground you can mark and reward. You can use either the continuation marker or the terminal marker as we are just pinpointing the moment in time of the behavior we want.

3. Repeat steps 1-2 a handful of times until you feel confident he understands the lure cue, then it’s time to remove the food lure.

4. Now remove the treat from your hand and do the same motion as before this time there is no treat. Mark and reward when they down. Remember to mark THEN reach into your pouch for the treat. 

5. Slowly start shaping your hand signal from the hand lure. Moving your hand further and further away from the dog until you can get them to down every time on your hand signal alone.

*Remember perseverance levels differ for dogs, they may need a reward halfway down at first. You may also need to just wait them out and try different angles. 

*Here’s where you can start shaping your hand signal to be different from your original hand lure cue. You can start shaping your down hand signal to something closer to your body without bending over. A lot of people do a palm facing down lowering hand motion. This may take many baby steps since the dog is always used to your palm being up. 

Another technique is to just do the new hand signal then follow that with the current lure motion. Over time they will start beating your lure letting you know they understand the new hand signal. Just like adding a command. 

Phase 2 - Automatic (Motivation)

1. Now you can name it as long as they are downing 5/5 times from your hand signal alone. Say “Down”, then cue with the hand signal, mark when they down, reward. 

   • Once you have added the command I like to use the terminal marker for the first handful of repetitions. This gives you the opportunity to do multiple repetitions in a short amount of time and relieves you of the added pressure of trying to reinforce the stay. Plus they’ll learn to perform more quickly because they will learn the faster they perform the command the faster they are released and rewarded. 

2. Say “Down” THEN do your hand cue. Once they are beating your hand cue it’s time to move onto the next phase. (Remember, if they don’t start to down after a second you should help them with the hand signal. Don’t get frustrated.)

Phase 3 - Generalization (Distractions)

Now your dog downs every time you say “Down” and you rarely need to help them with a hand cue. Congratulations! It’s time to show the dog that “down” means “down” everywhere else too. You can reference the Phases of Learning page to get more ideas on how to help generalize. Here are a few to get you started:

1. You’ve probably been standing in front of your dog doing this for a day or two in the same room. That’s the only picture the dog has seen for this sequence of events to give him a reward. Try to change it slightly. Have your dog next to you instead of in front and say “Down”. Be prepared to follow it up with a hand signal. If they still aren’t getting it go all the way back to luring with a treat in your hand. This is ok and they’ll catch on rather quickly. 

2. Practice in all rooms in the house and have the dog in front, on the side, back facing you, etc. 

3. Go outside in a low distraction environment (might need to let them explore for a few minutes first). Practice again and be prepared to start all over with the lure. 

4. Back in the house once the dog seems proficient at it in all rooms, start adding distractions like throwing a toy or someone being goofy on the other side of the room. Helps to have them leashed so they can’t go and reward themselves if they get distracted. If they are too distracted increase how much space is between them and the distraction.