Teaching dog to lie down

kylith

My two are generally well behaved so that I have no real need to teach them to lie down, but I want to anyway. They already know sit, come,off, 'go to bed', beg, and 'get out of my sight' (In a light tone of voice; it gives people a chuckle to watch the dogs run into the garden when I tell them to 'get out of my sight').

I've gotten to the stage that they will follow my hand into a 'lie' even if there's no treat in it. However I can't figure out how to get them to understand that my hand doesn't have to be right in front of their nose in order to do it. They're quite small dogs so I don't really want to have to get down on my knees every time I get them to lie. The signal I want to use is my hand held as though I had a treat, fingers pointing up, and lower my hand, so the same kind of motion I've been using to lure them down.

I've tried looking at videos on youtube, but those dogs obviously already know what they're doing because the trainer just says ''Now incorporate a hand signal", puts their hand up and lures with a treat, and the dog instantly knows that the hand signal means to lie down.

**Vai**

They arent getting the connection between you saying 'lie' and the hand gesture. Repeat 'lie' while they are following your hand gesture and while giving them the treat. Its easier for them to follow gestures and body language than to translate our English commands so it will obviously take longer with voice commands.

kylith

1) I started luring with a treat.
2) Then I swapped the treats to my other hand, lured with the empty hand, and then treated.
3)Then I lured with the empty hand, said 'lie' as soon as their belly touched the ground and treated. I did that about 50 times.

When I try to lure or signal from any position other than directly in front of their nose they just look at me. Is it just more repetition of 3) that's needed?

I honestly think that Rani gets too excited by food to concentrate much. Tegan got the lure quicker and after about 10 minutes I could get her to crawl a few steps too

**Vai**

Are they terriers by any chance? Sounds like my one

Getting them to do it from a distance is usually a matter of repetitions moving slowly away from them and making sure they know you're serious. Having said that, Ive never had this particular situation so maybe people who have been through exactly your problem will be of more help. I will say, I didnt use treats when teaching mine the basic obedience stuff and they got it almost straight away.

EDIT: Actually thinking back, I used treats the first few times and stopped then. That way they do it because they are told and not because a treat is coming.

kylith

**Vai** wrote: »

Are they terriers by any chance? Sounds like my one

They are. Hairy, stubborn little terrierists.

DBB

Hi Kylith,
Just a little point which could be quite important in the sequence. Sorry if it sounds geeky in the detail, but here goes!
Introducing a new cue is by far most effective if you introduce it at the right time: it must come before the old cue, not after it. If it's not introduced in the correct order, it is not picked up anywhere near as quickly.
At the moment, your dog is following your upturned hand down to the floor, yes? So, your hand gesture is your current cue.
Now, when you want to introduce a new verbal cue to eventually replace the hand cue, it is really important that you give the new cue, followed by the old cue, followed by the desired action, followed by the treat/reward.
So, start to introduce the verbal cue just ahead of the old cue:

"Down", immediately followed by the old hand cue.
When she lies down, she gets her reward.
This is instead of the current sequence of giving her the hand cue and waiting for her to lie down before you give the "Down" command. Issuing the verbal command during or after the behaviour has been carried out doesn't work particularly well.

So, to summarise:D, it's:
New cue > old cue > dog lies down > dog gets rewarded

With a bit of practise, the new verbal cue allows her to pre-empt the old visual cue, and she should start to lie down in anticipation of the hand cue. Now you can start to make the hand cue less and less obvious (fading the cue), whilst the verbal cue gains more significance for the dog!

Another tip, when you're trying to get the food lure out of the cueing hand: some dogs won't lie down when they know there's no longer any food in the cueing hand.
So, keep the food in the cueing hand for another while, but don't give the dog this treat when she lies down: give her a treat from the other hand. This teaches her that the treat is now going to come from a different place, but it's still coming! So she's not as hell-bent about you having food in your cueing hand.

Edited to add: When she's starting to get good at lying down for the verbal cue, start to randomise the treats. Very regularly random at first, gradually making them less regular, or getting her to do more for one treat.

paulgalway

Many examples on youtube. here is 1.

kylith

Thanks for all the advice folks. Although I still have to touch the ground I'm very pleased with their progress.

Tegan is doing a fantastic job and has really surprised me with how well she's doing because we've always considered her a bit dim. She's very calm during the whole thing and tends to stay lying down until encouraged to get up. She's picking up 'crawl', and her 'beg' is beyond reproach.

Rani is still very excited by the prospect of food and tends to pounce into a down at the start. She's so excited that once she lies down she often rolls straight onto her back to beg. Getting her to stay down is a bit more difficult than with Tegan, and she tries to use her teeth to get me to open my hand, but I've gotten a 10 second 'wait' out of her whilst I've had my back turned. She's also picking up 'crawl' very well. Getting a traditional 'beg' out of her is proving to be very difficult for 2 reasons: 1) she stands on her hind legs and tries to grab the treat out of my hand and 2) she always sits to one side rather than straight back, and always has done, which means that she has a fair chance of rolling over backwards when she tries to beg.

I'm going to try bully my OH into recording a session later, if ye'd be interested in seeing some old dogs learn new tricks.