05 FebEpisode 40 | Teaching a stellar “Down” with a verbal or visual cue

Every dog already knows how to lie down -- your dog lies down all the time! The trick to training a "down" is to teach your dog to do it when you ask for it. That involves adding a cue. In this episode, Annie addresses the difference between a "cue" and a "command," and talks about some of the pitfalls people tend to fall into when attempting to cue a dog -- is the dog responding to your words? Or your body language? Or both? Or neither?! Annie goes over how to teach a "down" using two methods: Capturing, and luring. For the former, she describes how to use a verbal cue. For the latter, she explains how to morph a lured down into a down that is a response to a clear and subtle visual cue. The result is a dog who will understand what you want in as little as just one training session.

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Transcript:

Annie:

Hello humans, thank you for tuning in to School for the Dogs podcast. As some of you know, I had a baby almost a month ago. I've been trying to find the perfect time to record this podcast all day and waiting for her to take a nap or at least be quiet for a while and finally decided I needed to do it while feeding her bottle so if you hear adorable little sucking and gurgling noises, that is my daughter who is a foot away from the microphone guzzling down some milk. So sorry sorry that the extra noise, maybe we can just pretend that baby Magnolia here is my co host. Listen to these adorable sounds, you can't make this kinda stuff up… and that was my dog snorting.

Anyway, if you enjoy this podcast, just want to remind you that you can help me out by sharing it with your dog-loving friends. You can do this in multiple ways, you can take a picture of your podcast player and share it on social media, on your stories or your feed. Let other dog lovers know that this is out there. If you tag School for the Dogs, we will go ahead and share in our stories too. Also leave us a rating and review on iTunes- very much appreciated. I love reading your iTunes reviews, it really helps me figure out what you find interesting and what I can offer more of and if you have a question you can send a direct message on Instagram, you can also go to Annie Grossman.com/ask and I will do my best to respond. Today I wanted to go over how to teach your dog to lie down and as I mentioned in the episode I did a few months ago on teaching the dog to sit – obviously lying down is something your dog already knows how to do good, your dog lies down all the time-the trick is of course to teach your dog to lie down when you ask him or her to do it. So it's really just about adding a cue to a behavior your dog already knows and, like many dog trainers, use the word cue instead of the word command although if you want to say command instead of cue that's okay with me. But we use the word cue instead of the word command because you’re really giving your dog the opportunity to do something for which they can be rewarded as opposed to the word command which, sort of, suggests you must do this or else bad is going to happen and which is an example of negative reinforcement- encouraging a behavior because you're going to take something away from a dog rather than encouraging a behavior you give your dog something which is exactly what positive reinforcement is.

So how do we add a cue to a behavior like “down.” Well I’m going to give you two methods: one method relies on luring and I like teaching some things using luring because a lot of people just sort of naturally lure their dog so when you're adding a cue to go together with a lure sometimes it's just a little bit easier especially if you've already been luring your dog, I’ll talk a little bit more about what a lure is in a moment. The other way is pure capturing and capturing is when you're waiting for a behavior to happen and then you’re marking that behavior with clicker or a marker word, I usually use the word “yes.” So let’s talk about how you simply capture down first and then how to add a cue to that behavior. So I suggest finding a place in your home where your dog is comfortable and is likely to lie down anyway whether that's on a bed or on, even the sofa, anyplace is fine if it's a place for our dog that has a history of lying down and getting comfortable. All you’re going to do is get some treats ready to go, I like putting my treats in my left hand or whatever your nondominant hand is- if you’re gonna have the clicker for this exercise, you should put the clicker in that same hand. But make sure the treats that you're using are not readily visible, you don't want your dog to be too aware of the presence of the treats until after your dog hears the click or, like I said, you could use the word “yes.” Then all you’re going to do is wait for your dog to lie down. How easy is that! So probably wise to do this at a time of day when there's not a whole lot going on where your dog is well rested, maybe after a good long walk with there's not a lot of distractions around and you should be pretty boring because you're not trying to encourage your dog to do this, you’re simply waiting for your dog to do it and that's what's so nice about that the click or your marker word is that gives your dog the information- that was the thing that I wanted you to do. So the second that your dog lies down on his or her own, click or use your marker word and then you’re going to follow that with a treat.

Now as I have talked about in previous episodes, when you’re using a clicker or marker word, you don't have to use a treat that’s edible- the treat could be game of fetch, it could be just praising your dog lavishly. And when I say a food reward it doesn’t have to be even anything extra special, some dogs are great at training just for their regular dry food. In fact my dog becomes much more interested in his regular dry food when were training, for some reason it takes on much more value than if I just dump a whole bunch of it in a bowl becomes like points in a game that he is winning rather than just our food that's being presented to him.

But I do think when you're teaching down, it's generally better to use some kind of the food reward rather than tossing a ball or something like that just because you are trying to teach something that is essentially a behavior that your dog does when he or she is relaxing so it can be kind of counterintuitive, in the beginning at least, to be rewarding the behavior with something that's going to cause your dog to be active like throwing a ball. Also you’re just to be able to get more repetitions in if you are using some sort of food reward since it's faster to deliver that than to reward each rep with the play or something like that. And as always it's important when you are using any kind of the food reward in most situations you want to use something your dog is going to be able to chew and swallow really quickly. You want to make sure that you're using something very small. You also want to use something that's not crumble up a whole lot because you don't want your dog wasting time in between repetitions searching for crumbs that have fallen. So pick something that's going to break up easily into very small pieces, like pinkie nail size or even smaller than that is a good good place to start. I like to use lamb lung. We use a lot of Tricky Trainers, which is a Cloud Star brand treat at School for Dogs. One Tricky Trainers- they are about the size of a pencil eraser, you can break one of those up into probably five or six little pieces. Or like I said, you can just use kibble if you're not in a very distracting environment. If you are somewhere more exciting, you probably want to use something more exciting, But you can use kibble and you can even break up some pieces of kibble into the size of, like, half a piece of kibble or a quarter piece of kibble.

So you got your treat ammunition, you have your nice chill place where you hang out with your dog. You can even sort of pen off an area so your dog doesn't have too much of a chance to wander around and then you’re just going to wait for your dog to lie down. The second your dog lies down, you're going to click or use your marker word and then you’re going to follow that with a treat and I suggest delivering the treat either in a foot in front of your dog, just far enough away that your dog is going to have to get up to go get the treat or can deliver it over your dog's head, high enough, that your dog is going to have to get up into a sit position in order to get the treat. Again you don't want to waste time in between repetitions so I don't want you to toss the treat to the other side of the room just strategically placing it in a spot where you're resetting your dog to now be able to lie down again.

So just back up a little bit, you might want to test how your dog understands your cue for “down” if you have worked on “down” with your dog before you start this exercise, because the steps that I have outlined so far, you are not offering any kind of cue, you are just waiting for your dog to lie down- we are at the capturing stage of this exercise. But if you've already worked “down” with your dog you can start from the beginning, which is where we are right now; however, it still might be useful to figure out what your dog understands. And you can do this by giving your cue and I would suggest either recording yourself on a video or having a friend watch you. If you’re giving a verbal cue like the word “down,” I want you to try and say it with as little as little body language as possible. I find that often and I'm guilty of this myself we think we’re giving a dog a verbal cue and actually we get into the habit ourselves of helping out or thinking at least that we’re helping out with all kinds of physical prompts. Often for lying down that can mean pointing, that can mean leaning over a dog and none of this is necessarily bad, I think it's just a good thing to know in the beginning when you're starting out where your dog is getting information. Is your dog watching what you're doing with your body or is he listening to your words? Or is he just guessing? You know a lot of the time I see people working on “down” with their dog and they tend to cue “sit” and then cue “down” and the dog learns, “I sit for a minute or a few seconds really and then I lie down,” and your dog isn’t even paying attention to anything you're saying or doing, your dog has just learned first I sit and then I lie down. Again, not a bad thing, it's just good to know that this is your dog’s pattern and that your dog has learned first sit then lie down.

So if you notice that you are giving physical cues in addition to your verbal cues, try separating them. Will your dog lie down if you hold as still as possible maybe lean up against a wall or have a friend hold your hands down at your side, will your dog respond and lie down if you just say the word “down.” Or do your physical cues and will your dog respond to that even if you don't say the word “down” And if you have a dog that tends to sit and then lie down see if you say the word “sit” or whatever your sit cue is and then see if your dog will lie down without you cuing that at all. So just just sort of to know where you are.

Again you can always take a behavior from scratch so whatever your conclusion is from this little test, you can still start from scratch and work on capturing. And I would suggest you don't start adding any kind of cue until your dog is reliably lying down on his or her own 8 to 10 times in a minute. You really want your dog to have figured out, “ oh I understand. I know how to train my human. All I need to do is lie down and I get a click in a treat.” It's really only at that point that you're gonna start to add any kind of cue.

And let's say your cue is the word “down,” the way you're going to do it is as your dog starts to lie down, you're going to say the word “down.” You’re only to say at one time and in the beginning, you're not asking your dog to do it, you're just sort of telling your dog, “hey, that thing that you doing right now we’re now to agree to call that “down.” So you're waiting for your dog to lie down, you're saying the word “down” as your dog start to lie down and then the second your dog lies down, you’re going to click and then you get to give the treat either a little bit in front of your dog so dog has to get up to get it or just above your dog to dog has to sit in order to get it. And what's nice about giving it above your dog’s head so the dog has to sit in order to get it done is your dog’s butt is going to stay in the same position the whole time. And really when your dog’s butt is down, when your dog is in a sit, your dog is in, sort of like, half of a down, right? Like butt down is half the body. So it’s just going to be easier to get my repetitions if your dog is already kind of halfway in a sit rather than waiting for your dog to go find the treat, come back etc. etc.

Now of course we can, later on, work on having your dog learn to go from a stand to a down versus from a sit down but right now I don't care too much whether your dog is going from a stand or a sit to a down. So you're giving the cue when they're getting this 8 or 10 times, 8 or 10 reps in a minute. And then what you’re going to start to do is say it a little bit early. So when you gamble 10 bucks your dog is going to lie down in the next 10 seconds, let's say, that’s when you're gonna start getting your cue. And you only ever allowed to say your cue once, I don't want you saying it over and over so that's why we try and make sure that the dog is going to do the behavior before we start adding the cue.

Now I know this can seem like, well the dog is not doing it because I'm saying it the dog was going to do it anyway and yeah, exactly, that's fine but we’re in the stage of just pairing the word with the behavior, the word is not eliciting the behavior. Right now we're just teaching them that it's a cue that if you do the behavior after I say this word, something really good is going to happen. Like I said, your dog already knows how to lie down your dog lies down all the time but the element that we’re introducing is if you do it when I pulled up this flag, the flag being the word “down,” there is good stuff in store for you. And that is pretty much always the process of adding a cue, you should only ever be giving a cue if you are pretty sure it is going to elicit the behavior. If you're unsure, if you think you might have to repeat it, then you can start from the beginning and go pair the cue with the behavior again, giving the cue when your dog is basically, as your dog is lying down. You can always start from scratch in that way.

I now want to talk about how you can add a cue to a lured down. If you've already been luring a “down” or if you just want to try a different method, I suggest following these steps. And when I teach a “down” in this way, I actually prefer using a visual cue, first, although you can add a verbal cue later on I'll talk about how to do this. The visual cue I like to use is my hand up kind of like a low hand raise, like you're raising her hand in class but not all the way up. You’re going to bend your arm at your elbow and hold it up so that your knuckles are at your shoulder, your hand is open. And I suggest using your dominant hand, for me that’s my right hand, because your treats are and if using a clicker, your clicker, are still both going to be in your other hand.

So a lot of people when they lure a down do this kind of, I call it like a modern dance move or some sort of, like, Freddie Mercury-move where they start up high and and they point down low to the ground in a dramatic way and their dog follows their finger. Perfectly fine but generally I like my cues to be as subtle as possible. I like cues that I can give from a distance, if need be, and I find that this sort of hand up cue is easier for both as reasons, easier to give it a distance and it's more subtle. And you don't have to totally let go of your habit of doing your dramatic pointing to the ground move just yet. We’re going to build that into this exercise before we totally get rid of it.

So what do is stick a little treat in between your fingers so, again, I want your hand to be totally open but if you want to try luring with a bit of lure you're going to put it between like your first, your pointer finger and your middle finger or if you prefer between your middle finger and your ring finger. If your dog has a really good hand touch and knows how to follow your hand, you might not need to do this but if your dog is used to following food in your hand this is the way I suggest doing it. And another reason why I suggest doing it this way rather than just pinching the food in your hand, which might feel more natural, is one problem of luring is that we humans get stuck sort of in the habit of luring, we tend to lure dogs long after they need the lure and we get attached to it and sort of attached to getting them more help than they need. This is why you often see people training their dogs with, I call it, like the teardrop hand or like the Mamma Mia hand- heir hands pinched together finger, fingers to thumb as if they have a treat in their hand, sort of, tricking their dog to think that they have a treat, an invisible treat, in the hand. I find having a flat hand and just sort of hiding the treat in the hand is a good way to get away from that. Also we’re not going to be using treats more than a couple of reps here. A reason to get away from using treats early on is because you don't always have treats on you, the more training you do that the fewer times you're actually going to be rewarding your dog with a food reward. The reward eventually is going to be variable, sometimes it’s going to be “good boy, Buddy.” Sometimes it’s going to be like tossing a ball or playing a game or just the opportunity to do another behavior that your dog likes. In the beginning, we lean on food a lot more but it’s going to be easier to get away from using food if the food is not always present.

So.I suggest hiding with food, your dog’s going to be able to see it a little bit, smell it a little bit, its not too obvious. You have your hand, knuckles to your shoulder, hand up and I want you to start your dog for this exercise in a seated position. I don't really care how you get your dog into a sit, I would just do it as painlessly as possible. If your dog has a really good sit, ask your dog to “sit”. If you need to hold something over your dog's head to get your dog’s butt to the ground, that's fine, I don't mind asking you not to “sit” a million times, if your dog can do it on the first time, that's great but this exercise isn’t about that. It’s just about figuring out how to get your dog’s butt on the ground, like I said, that’s half of the down.

Once you got your dog’s butt is on the ground, and I should say, just like with the other version of teaching “down” I suggest having your dog for this exercise in a chill environment, you don't want a lot of distractions going on, if you need to do it, a penned area, that's fine. You can even do it while your dog is in a crate, actually that can be a really good way to get the behavior happening with a lot of frequency because your dog isn’t going to have a lot of chance to wander around and certainly if you hold something over the top of the crate, that's probably going to get your dog’s butt to go down because usually when the head is up, their butt goes down.

So you are going to have your little bit of food in your hand. Hand up. And now what I want you to do is make the shape, it's kind of the shape of the number two. You're gonna start with your hand right above your dog's head and I want you to, sort of, trace downwards. You’re going to, sort of, trace your dog's chest all the way to the ground and then you’re going to go, sort of, into their chest a little bit as you hit the ground and then you're going to pull your hand towards you, horizontal to the ground. parallel to the ground I should say, and most often your dog’s nose is going to be following your hand and your dog's body is going to slide into a down. You might need to try this a few times, you might need to try it with different paces. If your dog pops up out of the sit, I suggest putting your hand behind your back, sort of, doing that a restart of the game.

But again what you're doing is starting up at your dog's head and then bringing your hand down, tracing your dog's chest. I find it can be helpful to push in, that's where it starts to look like a number 2, sort of, the curved bottom of the 2 going in and then pulling your hand towards you. The second your dog's elbows hit the ground, that's when you're going to click or say your marker word, like “yes.” and then you’re going to deliver your treat in the seated position again. Again we're just trying to reset the dog so that your dog is going to be able to get lots of repetitions in a row and is already halfway in the “down” position. You want to try and do this very quickly, like I said, we’re trying to get as many reps in a minute as we can. And like I said, I want you to try and get rid of the food lure as quickly as possible, so I suggest doing this with a little bit of a treat in your fingers only like 3-4 times maximum, and then see if your dog will do it with just your open hand.

So once you've done this maybe 10 or 12 times or you can take a break in and do a couple rounds. But I find you don't have to do too many rounds till you can try the next step. The next step is simply holding up your hand, just like you're doing before, but I want you to hold it there for an extra beat. So before you start making that “2” shape, before you start putting your hand over your dog's head and bringing it down, you’re just going to hold your hand up in that, like you raising her hand in class position, for three seconds and you'll be amazed at how quickly your dog is gonna understand, “oh I think this means she wants me to lie down.” Dogs are very good at trying to predict the future, is how I see you. And your dog is going to figure out faster than you expect. “ Gosh, every time she holds up her hand like that she then does that thing where I lie down and then she gives me a click and a treat, so I might as well cut to the chase and I don't need her to do that whole down to the ground with her hand thing. I just can do it as soon as I see her hand go up.”

I really love doing this method of teaching “down” with clients especially with puppy owners who’ve never taught their dog down before because it can seem like magic. It's amazing how quickly dogs get I have seen so many dogs get it right on the fourth or fifth try, I just start holding my hand up a little bit longer and they plop into that “down” position and seem so proud of themselves and so excited and then owners get all excited too. It's a lot of fun and it’s a good reminder, I think, of how tuned in dogs are of what we want and how good they are at figuring things out.

Now one behavior can have multiple cues, if you want to add a verbal cue to this behavior, you always give the new cue first so you're gonna say the word “down” and then hold up your hand and just like your dog began to predict “every time she holds up her hand she then clicks and treats me for lying down,” your dog is going to take that next leap and realize after a few reps, “every time she says the word ‘down’, she then does that thing with her hand which means I should lie down, so I should probably just lie down as soon as she says the word ‘down.’” The key is to not give your verbal cue and your visual cue at the same time, you want to separate the two things and if you're trying to add that verbal cue, you're gonna give the verbal cue first. Again not repeating it, just saying at one time. Now like anything else that you train your dog to do once you’ve got it down in that sort of low stress quiet environment where you’ve been practicing, you want to try in the new room, You maybe want to try it outside, try it with a new person doing it. It’s all the process of generalizing the behavior. And when you take it to a new environment or do it with a new person, you start from scratch. You’re setting your dog up for success by what, Karen Pryor calls “going back to kindergarten.” So when you've been practicing in your kitchen and now you are going to be practicing in your living room, you're going to go back, maybe, to saying “down: as your dog is lying down instead of saying it a little bit before. Or if you’re doing the hand lure, you know, maybe in the kitchen, you were able to do it without any food in your hand, but in the living room you're gonna do a couple reps with some food in your hand before you start raising the level of difficulty.

Now other things can become cues too besides just words or visual things that you're gonna be doing with your body. One of my favorite cues for teaching “down” is using a mat. You can teach your dog that whenever he sees a mat on the ground, it could be your specific training, that that means your dog needs to lie down. And you're simply gonna do this by adding a cue, just like we added the word “down” to the hand signal, once your dog goes to the mat you’re going to give your cue that your dog has learned already for “down” and soon your dog is going anticipate it, “gosh, every time I go to the mat, my human gives me that “down” cue, so as soon as I go to the mat, I might as well just do it there anyway. “ In lieu of the mat, with my dog Amos, I like to use a piece of paper. I find this is really useful because it's a good way to put him exactly where I need him to be in pretty much any situation, I can find some kind of rectangular piece of paper, be it just an envelope or a napkin or menu, even if I need to. And I call it his “sticky spot.” He knows every time I see that there's a piece of paper on the ground I need to go lie on it, which is sometimes funny because sometimes if there are papers just strewn on the ground, he will go around and lie on the different pieces of paper to see if it gets any result.

So give it a go and let me know how this goes with your dog. I will try to do a demonstration video in our Facebook group which is at Facebook.com/groups/schoolforthedogs and if you listen to last week’s episode with Jessica Jacobson, I wanted to mention that you can check out her manual on getting your dog ready for your Baby, it's on storeforthedogs.com and through next Monday, that's February 11, we are giving away copies for free via email, just go to storeforthedogs.com and search for the baby book or you can go to Schoolforthedogs.com/babybook and it will bring you right there and at check out use the discount code “freebabybook.” It's a nice little manual that Jessica wrote up, I think it has some great tips.

Woof Shout out this week it goes to my dog Amos who you heard snoring earlier in this episode. Lots of great sound effects in this episode, he has so far been a really excellent big brother- the cutest thing he's been doing is sleeping under the baby’s bassinet, I call it their bunkbeds. Quite adorable. Fun dog fact of the week: as you might know, Westminster is next week, the dog show in New York City, and you might be interested to know that there are two new breeds that they’ve welcome to Westminster this year. One is a French breed, the grand basset griffon Vendeen and the other is a Dutch breed called kooikerhondje which was actually featured in some of Rembrandt's paintings which I thought was kind of cool. Anyway I'm hoping to go to Westminster next week, maybe podcast from there. If there's anything specific you're curious now about Westminster, let me know. You can email me at podcast@schoolforthedogs.com or send a direct message on Instagram, you can find us there at @schoolforthedogs.

Links:
Lamb Lung
Tricky Trainers
Expectant Parents + Dogs
Westminster 2019 new breeds