Need help training the emergency down/stay

[ShilohsGirlJen]

I have been working with Lowe on this for some time and she is not grasping it. With her spooking the way she has been for the last few months I feel the need to really work on this.

[gotbigdogs]

what have you tried so far?

Are you talking, like, whatever shes doing, just all of a sudden a down and a stay? like the down durning recall you do in obedience?

IFSO... I teach my dogs using mat training. Teach down on a mat or towel or whatever.. move it further and further away. As she gets more reliable shrink the mat until its no longer there. Ive had to use that on a few dogs and it worked great.

If thats not what your talking about, elaborate and maybe I can help

[Itsapyr]

I am sending my 2 to Amanda for training. They do down...sometimes, stay never. As close as we get to stay is wait...kind of.

[ShilohsGirlJen]

Not so worried about the down on recall as we are not going to that level in comp. She got her CD Title in December of this lasy year. She hates her dumbell and not worth it to me to force it with her. She is sorta doing the down on recall for me now but not further than say 3 feet away from me. As we basically take the summers off from serious training we will be getting back into it. I mean down as in running toward something dangerious(road, busy street) and stay there until I say otherwise. Or running toward an open door to the outside in a strange place. She knows not to run out the doors here.

So far we have been doing the forced down, on leash with a low sharp down command and then pushing the leash to the floor. Then releasing her backwards. She does regular downs on hand and/or voice commands.

[ToBScholarly]

Our trainer has us throw something loud (like a chain collar) in front of them as they were walking/running towards us and say "Down!" as it hit the floor. The thought was to associate the loud scary thing with going down , and then praising them when they did it.

Reggie never grasped the concept though. Big surprise.

[ShilohsGirlJen]

That may be worth a try. Was there someone next to them to tug them into the down if they did not do it right away? I suppose her chuck chains would work but the dog is to assume those come from the sky.

[ToBScholarly]

Hmmm, I don't recall (pardon the pun). I don't think so but I think we had to run up and put them in a down if they did not down themselves immediately after the command.

[gotbigdogs]

I guess what I was getting at is that if my dogs had a solid down, and solid down on recall then they would have a solid down no matter what, running in to the road, chasing something, whatever. But i know its a lot harder then it sounds. I only have 2 dogs that will do that no matter what.. theyre also the two who have had the most formal training and are the two oldest.

Ive also used play for training.. throwing a ball (for example), make them down while chasing it... and then using a second ball for play (reward) so they never get the first ball they were chasing..

Not so worried about the down on recall as we are not going to that level in comp. She got her CD Title in December of this lasy year. She hates her dumbell and not worth it to me to force it with her. She is sorta doing the down on recall for me now but not further than say 3 feet away from me. As we basically take the summers off from serious training we will be getting back into it. I mean down as in running toward something dangerious(road, busy street) and stay there until I say otherwise. Or running toward an open door to the outside in a strange place. She knows not to run out the doors here.

So far we have been doing the forced down, on leash with a low sharp down command and then pushing the leash to the floor. Then releasing her backwards. She does regular downs on hand and/or voice commands.