Monday, June 13, 2011
A First for the Family
Early Saturday morning, we loaded up & took a drive to Morehead. Pauley was the only dog with us, & I think he thought we were off to the vet's office. What a surprise he was in for! We went to The Tin Woof Inn for Pauley's first obedience lesson! We have never taken any of our dogs to training before & were inspired to do so after reading many of the blogs we frequent. We were tickled that Pauley listened to the instructor right away (we sometimes have trouble getting his attention away from oh birds, butterflies, flowers & other assorted items). He did wonderful on "watch me" "come" & "sit", but we were unable to get him into the "down" position. Each time we or the instructor would try, his bottom would pop up when his head went down. Does anyone have any advice? 
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10 comments:
I'll tell you what our trainer told us - 'practice practice practice, reward reward reward' and having dogs that behave is so so SO much easier. Good Luck with that doll baby.
Bobo and Meja Mommy
Glad to hear the class went well :)
Too much fun! I am glad Pauley had a good time at his first class. :-)
As far as teaching "down" goes, I am assuming your instructor recommends using a lure with you holding the treat between his paws? If that doesn't work and his bottom always stays in the air, I would try capturing the behaviour. Throughout the day, any time you catch him laying down naturally, praise the action and give him a treat. The hope is, eventually he will start offering it on his own in hopes of getting a reward. Once you know he will offer it, that's when you can add the verbal. Using a clicker helps a lot when capturing behaviours.
Does that make sense? I hope it helps. Pauley is one smart little guy and I am sure he will figure it out soon!
Kristine, thank you for the advice! I am going to try it out this evening.
Pam, I need to keep that in mind :)
Its the hardest one to learn. Big Carl hasn't yet. ITs taken us a lot of treats for the others to learn
KAri
http://dogisgodinreverse.com/
Sounds pawesome!
I am sure you are going to do it better and better with practice!
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza
OH! I LUVS to go to my training classes! Luvs, luvs, LUVS it! It's so much fun cuz I get to learn new stuff and it's time that mom and me can spend just the two of us.
Mom said Brudder Ranger's butt did that when he first started learning it, too. But she says that she can't remember how they fixed it. It was prolly just lots and lots of practice.
Have fun!
Wiggles & Wags,
mayzie
That pup is too cute - idk what to do!
www.twogradstudentsandapittie.blogspot.com
Wow, that is an adorable shot!
Mason just went to school for the first time on Monday night. At the end of class we started learning "down." Our instructor told us to have him sit and then put a treat in our hand but turn our palm so it's facing the floor and then let Mason lick at it while lowering our palm to the floor. If you keep your hand close to the dog, he has to bend down in such a way that eventually he kind of plops over and lays down! Then once he's "down" he gets the treat and some soft rubs on the back and "good down!" praise.
We've "studied" a few times and the technique is working pretty well so far!
-Chandra at Daley's Dog Years
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