Teaching Missy the "Down" commend.
 

Can anyone help me? I am trying to find out how to teach Missy "down". I've done several searches but I quess I'm not using the right words or something because I am not having much luck. She has quickly learned sit, and spin and stand pretty but every time I try to get her to lay down she jumps up from her sit and backs off. What should I be doing. I would appreciate any help. Debbie

Opps! Sorry about the typo. I knew I should have checked over what I wrote!

have her sit and then hold the treat on the ground , when she goes down to get it say down and hand her the treat;)

Thanks for the reponses. I have tried getting her down from the sit but she will not go down completely. She gets down low but when I tried to gently encourage her the rest of the way she jumps back up. I will try finding something on you tube. I did go into the training section but haven't been able to find something specific to the "down" yet but I will keep looking. If anyone has a definite post please let me know. Thanks again.

Try putting her up on a chair or stool. Most puppies are so small when you say down, they just look down, not go down b/c they are already so close to the floor. So put her up on a chair and sit. Then lure her with the treat and go down past the level of the seat so that the treat is actually much lower than it would be if she were on the ground. She will have to go in a down position to get closer to the treat. As soon as her elbows touch the seat say good down and treat.

You may also want to check out Britster's thread in the training forum too, lots of tips for trick training. :) http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/tra...-progress.html

this is how i taught dex to do down - sit and down were as far as we got lolll and my girls forget it they are out of control lollll

Maya and Mika told me to tell you to leave Missy alone. We don't do tricks over here, at least not ORGANIZED ones. THe ones that happen by accident are so much more fun.

Missy says hi to Maya Mika but says that she'll do anything if it gets her treats, accidently or on purpose!! And by the way she is acting I'd say she really enjoys the tricks as well as the treats! I can't believe how quickly she picks them up except for the down one. So far that is difficult for her. Thank you for the other ideas. We tried the chair one and it seems hopeful but everytime she goes down to get the treat her butt goes up. But we will keep working on it a little at a time. Thanks for the help. Debbie

Chip was easy to train with everything - all we had to do was from a sit position hold the treat in front of his nose and bring it to the ground. He followed it with his nose. Smokey was another story... I learned this trick by watching others have to do it at Chip's puppy class. Squat down on the ground as low as you can and hold one leg straight out to the side. Have your dog sit directly in front of your leg that is straight. Hold the treat to the ground behind your leg, but in front of where your dog is sitting and she should try to crawl underneath to get it. When she does do the whole praise thing and repeat, repeat, repeat until you don't have to use your leg anymore. When I did that, Smokey learned in like 15 minutes after months (no exaggeration) of trying to teach him down. I'll try tomorrow to maybe get some pictures of me doing it with Smokey so maybe you can see it visually if you want.

Did I forget to mention that I am 53!!! :) Getting down on the floor in a crouch is bad enough but putting my leg out straight from there, I found causes lots of pain. :) But I did do it but I won't have to worry about working on it for too long. I will loose feeling in my legs long before Missy looses interest!! But we will keep trying and see if any of the ideas work. I guess this trick is just going to take more work then the others! Thanks again all. This is a lot of fun!

None of the usual gentle methods that worked with my 3 previous Yorkies worked with Zoey. Maybe because she is so small and low to the ground (4 lbs.), she just dipped her head and nabbed the treat.

Sounds awful, but I ended up gently pushing her down with my hand over her shoulders, while saying "down." Did it just 2 or 3 times and she figured it out...kind of like "sit." Now she downs like an angel with just a hand signal. :)

For the chair method: Use your other hand and put it behind her butt in the sit position. When she starts to go down and lifts up her butt, hold the hand over her butt when she goes down. if she feels your hand above her, she will put it back down.

Most dogs learn Down very quickly, but of course, some dogs don't. :) It's a very vulnerable/submissive position, so some dogs really don't like it.

I second the crawling under the leg technique, I believe that's called a "bridge".

Also, you can just "shape" the behavior. Give her a treat for just touching her nose to the floor, then only treat if she goes a little lower, then a little lower than that... if she's jumping back, it sounds like something is making her uncomfortable. How's your body language?

I know that my hand coming down from behind her does make her jump up. She has always been a little "hand shy" when they are coming at her, like when we would go to pick her up she backs up. But I read on here that is a common reaction. And now she is better at that. When I go to use my other hand at all, she turns to that hand looking for the treat in that hand also. She has to check it out. I hope my body language is OK. I never work with her for more then 3 or 4 minutes, 5 at the most when she is doing good. I don't want her to get bored or frustrated. She is still so young.

Why is your hand behind her? You should have both hands in front of her while teaching Down. If you haven't tried this already:

* Tell her to Sit, treat.

* Put another treat on the ground in front of her and cover it lightly with a few fingers. She should naturally bend down to get the treat, and if she kind of has to work it from your fingers, she should naturally crouch down. When she's fully down, say "Good Down!" and let her have the treat - or even give her another one as a reward.

Thanks everyone for all the idea's. I guess Missy is not one of the ones that does this command easily. We are still working on it though. Anyway we will keep trying. The reason my hand was in the back was to just encourage her to lower her backend. The only thing she does "naturally" is that she raises her butt everytime her front half goes down :) Maybe it's a genetic thing. :)

Missy went DOWN!!!!!! Finally! We kind of combined a few different ideas. Putting her in a chair helped by limiting her from backing up as much when she did get up from a sit. I realized if I kept my hand lightly on her back after I made her sit, she wasn't trying to follow my hand to look for a treat. Then I'd tell her down and hold the treat on the seat of the chair and then gently pushed down & back on her butt. It helped that the chair was wooden and she "slid" down easily. Once we did it a few times and she finally realized what I wanted her to do she did it on her on with just a slight amount of preasure on her back!!!! I think with just a little more practice she will do it without my hand at all. Thanks again for all the ideas and help! It is truely amazing how smart these dogs are.

:congrats: Sounds like you make a good team!

It help's when you have a good partner. Thanks again for all the help. You guys are great!!!

Great! :D

Zoey learned on a wooden floor, rather than a chair. That slippery business really makes a difference (along with that little push)... ;)

Yay for Missy! :) :thumbup:

It took us a while to teach Sandy how to 'down'. It helped a lot putting one hand on his butt to let him know he should stay down. It worked.

You guys are going to have so much fun training! ;)

I have found the clicker method works great! Just start by noticing him in the down position, then click, and give a treat. Do this a number of times. Then when you click, treat, then say down.... He will eventually understand what it is you want him to do.... It sounds kind of confusing, but it really works well... I have taught mine to sit, down, and roll over, all within about a week... Just google it to try and find clicker training... good luck:animal-pa

What i did with Lienkie is i used to sit on the carpet legs crossed and with my left leg i'll make a tunnel for her to go through, ensure just enough space for her to crawl under. I'd take a snack in my left hand (she is sitting at my right) and put my arm through my leg encouraging her to take the snack. As she comes closer i'd move my arm a bit further away each time. When she's final under my leg she will lay down automatically as my leg pushes her to the ground basically and i will say "down" and give her the snack. I would normally let her come through out the other side and praise her and give her another snack. Try this may work for you. The other thing i used to do is get her to sit. I'd take a snack and hold it to her nose to smell and gradually go down with my hand forcing her to lay down. Keeping my hand very close to her body and she would lay down. The main thing is to not give up and have a lot and i mean a lot of patience with your yorkie. They are small dags with very big hearts and they want to be the boss and not you. I'm glad to say we have no problem in that area anymore. It's just the potty training that the biggest problem at this stage.
Good luck hope it works.

OK, Missy has the "down" part but now how do I go about getting her to roll. Tried moving the treat around to the side of her head but she just jumps up to go for it. I have tried watching some of the video's but they keep stopping and going and it is so annoying. I am not sure what to do about that so does anyone have any helpful hints for the rolling over and/or any ideas for some other tricks to teach her. She now does sit, stand pretty, down, spin. shake, and kiss. I have not done any leash work with her yet. Thanks again for all the help.

Have you checked out this thread yet? http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/tra...-progress.html There's lots of different tricks and tips on how to do them. :)

FYI, Roll is an "intermediate" command. :) It might take her a while to get it. It took forever with Thor. One thing I did was whenever he rolled on his back while he was playing, I'd praise him and give him a treat.

Thanks again for all the help. Have been keeping up with the "tricks in progress" but was hoping there were some other "tricks" to the roll command. But we won't give up. We'll just take it slow and easy. Still working on the crawl too. I have to find something more interesting to crawl for though. Cherrios just aren't it!!