5. DOWN

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LEVELS BOOK

LEVEL ONE

The dog must Down from a Sit or Stand with no more than two cues - hand and voice, voice and body language, two voice cues, etc. It is not necessary for the dog to stay in the Down position, simply to lie down.

DISCUSSION:
Not quite as handy a cue perhaps as Sit, but close to it, and the beginning of putting the dog over on her side for grooming and nail cutting. Not to mention that it's a major part of Go To Mat, a behaviour which would probably keep half the year's total of dogs out of the Humane Society! Down is the easiest position cue for dogs to understand, so the easiest one to ask a puppy for when you just need her off your head and shoulders for a moment.

EASY BEGINNINGS:
This is an ideal behaviour to capture. Even the most active dog lies down a billion times a day. If you're desperate to have the dog lie down (please, God, just let the kerflushinner puppy lie down for ONE MINUTE!), click when she does and toss a treat between her paws so she can eat it without having to get up. Continue to click and toss every few seconds while she's still lying down. If you're more interested in teaching the dog to lie down on cue (the two aren't mutually exclusive, you can start with one and switch to the other later on), click when she lies down and toss the treat slightly off to one side so she has to get up to get it. This puts her in a perfect position to offer you another down to get another treat.

You can also lure a Down, but that's easier to do when she already knows how to Sit. From a Sit, hold a treat in your hand, put it right up to her nose so she can nibble it a bit, then very slowly move it down and then forward. If she rises out of the Sit, you moved your treat too far forward and not enough down. You're aiming for a spot on the floor slightly in front of her front paws. For more information on how-to lure, see the Level One Sit.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

      WHEN I CLICK, SHE GETS UP AND COMES OVER TO SEE IF SHE CAN GET ANOTHER TREAT: Sure, that's reasonable. Just ignore her. If you're having trouble ignoring her, train Zen for a couple of days before you go back to Down. Pretty soon she'll get bored with hanging around waiting for you to drop a treat. She'll wander off, and sooner or later she'll lie down again. Click and toss another treat.

     I WANT A FOLD-BACK DOWN AND SHE'S JUST FLOPPING DOWN: If she's a puppy, relax and click what she's offering you. Put a cue on the flop down such as Park It. When she's got some control of her legs, you can teach her the fold-back Down by luring her nose back between her front legs toward her back feet, then put your Down cue on that behaviour. Or you might find that the down she offers you is the one you wanted all along.

ADDING A CUE: When the dog is offering you the down that you want, clearly knowing that the offering will result in a click, you can begin to tell her the name of the behaviour. Give your cue while she's giving you the behaviour. When you've paired the behaviour and the word a hundred times, try asking her for the behaviour when she's not thinking of it. If you get it, click and treat. If you don't, that's OK, pair it another hundred times and try again.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Play with the behaviour. Teach it from the beginning in different rooms, indoors and outdoors. Teach it in your car, on carpet and hard floors. Teach it with you standing, sitting, and lying down.

LEVEL TWO

Dog Downs from Sit on one cue only. The handler may use the dog’s name to get her attention before a voice cue. This behaviour must be done with no treats or clicker anywhere in the room or area.

DISCUSSION: This is a "blue behaviour": it must be tested with no treats or clicker on you or near you. In fact, not in the same ROOM. Not MUCH different from the L1 Down – unless you've spent too much time luring the behaviour! We're starting early to show the dog that just because there are no treats or clicker doesn't mean there's no possibility of her being rewarded for giving you a behaviour.

EASY BEGINNINGS: You already have the dog giving you a Down with two cues. Now you're going to drop one cue. If you've lured the Down, you probably have a good Down signal at this point. In fact, she's probably not even listening to your Down voice cue. Try it out. Ask for a Down JUST with a hand signal. Pretend you've got a treat in your hand and make the luring motion. Click and treat when she goes down.

That's the easy way out. If you want a single voice cue for Down, you'll have to work a little harder (see Adding A Cue).

Now, how to get rid of the treats? First, get them off your body. Put them on a counter top or table. Stand near the counter, and ask for the Down. Use everything you've got, just as if you DID have the treats on you. When she goes down, say YES!, and get her a treat off the counter. Try it again. See, dear? Even if I don't have them in my hand, you're still going to get one! Amazing, isn't it!

PROBLEM SOLVING:
      SHE WON'T LIE DOWN IF I DON'T HAVE TREATS: Clicker trainers, especially new converts, are usually quick to want to get rid of the rewards. They envision a lifetime of wearing a pocketful of wieners, of pulling change out of a pocket at the store and getting two dimes, a nickel, and five bits of kibble, and they want to pull the plug on THAT idea as soon as possible. Well, forget it. Do you go to work and get paid every day for 6 months and then for the rest of your life without getting paid?

Don't worry, you're not going to have to carry a pocketful of kibble for the rest of your life, but don't be too fast to tell the dog that!

Put the treats and clicker in your pocket. Make sure the dog sees this happening. Go to the counter, take them out of your pocket and put them on the counter. Rapid-Fire ten treats from the counter to your dog (not quite as rapid as if you had them in your hand all along, but that's OK. We're trying to explain to the dog that the treats are available, even if they aren't on you). Now pretend to pick up another one, ask for the Down, say YES! And get another treat from the counter to give her.

ADDING A CUE: You want to add a single voice cue to your hand signal. There are two ways to add a new cue to a behaviour you already have. One way is to start from scratch. Sit with the clicker and treats, signal a couple of Downs until she's thinking "Wow, Down is really paying off today!" At that point, after each click, she'll be offering you another Down. And you know that when she's offering you a behaviour again and again, knowing it's going to pay off, you can starting putting a name on it, so simply start saying "Down" WITHOUT giving the hand signal to tell her what her behaviour is called. When you've named it a hundred times while she's offering it, try asking her for a Down when she wasn't thinking about it. If you get it, fantastic. If you don't, name it another hundred times and ask again.

The second way to add a new cue to an old behaviour is to use it with the old cue BUT hand signals are very powerful to a dog. If you use a hand signal AND a voice cue at the same time, the dog won't really notice the voice cue at all. Handler is thinking "Dumb dog, I've used this voice cue 800 times and she STILL doesn't know it!" while the dog is thinking "Why is he blabbing and then getting mad? Where's my hand signal so I know what to do?" Remember, though, that dogs are superstitious animals. They like one thing to predict another thing. So you can add a new cue by using FIRST the new cue ("Down"), THEN the old cue (hand signal to Down). Do this often enough and the dog will think "Gee, every time he says that word, he gives me a hand signal to Down. I might as well Down when I hear the word!"

CONTINUING EDUCATION: It's time to start thinking about other forms of payment. What would the dog like? Could you give her a good back-scratch every fifth time? Or dance around a bit and clap your hands (sounds silly, but mine like that)? If you ask the dog for a Down when she wants to go outside, you can reward the Down by opening the door. Ask for a Down when she wants you to throw a ball, and reward the Down by throwing the ball. Think about all the ways you can add these "life rewards" to her training. By asking for a behaviour before you do things for her, you're forging a better relationship AND building more self-control into the dog.

Your problem for right now, though, is how to move away from those treats. When she knows that she'll get a reward when the reward is on the counter instead of in your hand or pocket, it's time to stand further away from the counter. Each time you practise, go one step further away. After you get the behaviour and say YES!, go back to the counter for the treat. Pretty soon you'll be working in one room, and the treats will be in another room!

Next, change where you put the treats. Put them on the dining room table. Remember, when you change ONE thing, you make everything else easier, so when you put the treats somewhere different, you start RIGHT BACK BESIDE HER and move slowly away from them as you did before. After each dog's meal, I measure out the next meal and put the dish in a kitchen cupboard. Wherever I am in the house (or yard, eventually), when the dog does something that I want to reward, and there are no available or appropriate life rewards, I'll say YES! and we both go back to the kitchen to get a kibble. I also keep a little SEALED jar of kibble near the computer so when I see the pup go by carrying something she shouldn't have, I can call her over and reward her for giving it to me.

LEVEL FOUR

The dog Downs from a Stand on one cue only. This behaviour must be done with no treats or clicker anywhere in the room or area.

DISCUSSION: The difficulty here is that many dogs don't learn Down as a behaviour, but merely as one-step-down-from-where-I-was. So they think Down from Sit means Down, but Down from Stand means Sit. If this behaviour takes little further training on your part, congratulations. If it takes a lot of work, consider it a good lesson in communication. The dog rarely sees something from your point of view the first time you explain it to her!

EASY BEGINNINGS: Don't get stuck in the trap of chanting Down!, getting a Sit from Stand, then chanting Down! again to get the real thing. Remember, when you make something harder, or change something, you stop using the cue until you've got the new behaviour as you want it.

As we get into more and more advanced behaviours, there will be more and more different ways to achieve your goals. How to get the dog to Down from standing?

You could get her started on Downs from Sit, to the point where she's volunteering them. As you click for each one, toss the treat far enough away from her that she has to get up to get it. As she comes back to you and offers you another Down – hey, she was giving you a Down from standing up! From there it's just a matter of adding the cue back in.

You could lure her down with a treat or target pulling her nose down and back between her front legs. This is a classic way of teaching a bow, but if you've started with a volunteer Down from Sit and moved to the lure, she'll figure out eventually that you want ALL the parts down, not just the elbows.

You could just click when she lies down while she's wandering around the house, and add a cue to it when she's volunteering it.

PROBLEM SOLVING:
       SHE WON'T GO DOWN UNLESS SHE'S SITTING FIRST! You're trying to go from where you were to where you want to be. Down from Stand is a COMPLETELY different behaviour than Down from Sit. PLEASE go back to the top of this section and start from scratch!

ADDING A CUE: Only when she's volunteering the behaviour. It's a HUGE temptation to build in two cues here – one "Down" meaning Sit, and a second "Down" meaning Down. Roll up a newspaper, nice and tight now, and smack yourself in the forehead with it when (WHEN, not IF) you find yourself doing this.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Different locations, different directions, different surfaces.

LEVEL FIVE

The dog Downs from Stand on a hand signal only. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: This behaviour SHOULD be easier than getting the Down with a voice cue. On the other hand, you've just spent a lot of time teaching the voice cue. Good practise for you in switching cues on a learned behaviour!

LEVEL SIX

The dog Downs from Stand on signal from 10’ away. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: Still more work on distance. One of the best things about clicker training is the ability to reward the dog at a distance, making training that much easier.

LEVEL SEVEN

The dog Downs from Stand on signal in line (Stand, Down, Sit, Come). No distance is required. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: Now you're putting learned behaviours into a sequence. This is part of the obedience Signal Exercise in Utility.