Teaching Down To a Dog

Teaching Commands to your dog!  

Way before you can even think about teaching your dog complex tricks, there are a few basics every dog and owner should accomplice.

They really do help create a successful relationship between human and dog.   You should avoid talking to your dog in forms of questions. Rather, everything should be a command.  

You can begin these basic training commands at a very young age, the sooner the better.  

Teaching Down To a Dog  

This should be the next command taught after Sit. The ‘down’ command provides a strong foundation for more advanced commands than be taught at a later date. You will also come to reply on ‘down’ a lot more than you realise!  

1. Begin by getting your dog in the sitting position.
2. Hold a lovely, irresistible treat in your hand. Hold the treat in front of the dog and move you hand straight down to the ground. You should find that your dog will follow it.
3. As soon as you see his belly touch the floor and his legs are out in front of him, give the treat and praise him.
4. Repeat this step several times being careful not to overload your dog.
5. Once you feel ready, it is time to introduce the verbal command. It is your choice as to the word you use, but we will use ‘down’.
6. Just as in step 2, hold a treat in front of your dog. Just before you begin to move the treat down to the ground, say the work ‘down’.
7. The timing is very important as your dog will learn an association between the word ‘down’ and the actual act of doing it.
8. As in step 4, repeat.
9. In time, you should find that you no longer need the treat and your dog only needs to verbal command of ‘down’.
10. Once you feel happy with the basics of ‘down’, it is time to introduce different variables, once at a time. Try changing the location, distance and duration. Only change one at a time though, too much too soon will only serve to hinder your training session.