Successes and failures

I spent part of my Sunday trying to teach three dogs the command “down.”

Down is one of the most difficult commands for dogs to master, because it’s a vulnerable position that goes against their instincts. Most dogs will not lie down voluntarily unless they feel completely safe. Even then, they don’t always understand what you want them to do.

I taught our late Chiweenie, Dashy, to sit on a storage ottoman, then held a piece of kibble at her eye level and moved it down to a spot a couple of inches below her feet to lure her into position. She caught on quickly, and I’ve used the same method with other dogs since then.

Marley wasn’t getting it at all, so I got online and looked up other techniques. One suggestion was to change the movement of the lure: Instead of coming straight down, you move the kibble down, then angle it back between her feet until she drops her nose and arches her back, at which point you bring the lure forward at ground level. I tried this move Sunday with a big sighthound mix and the fire department’s Chesapeake Bay retriever and got excellent results both times — the dogs understood exactly what I wanted them to do and happily followed the treat.

It didn’t work with Marley, who just backed up or stared at me in utter confusion, so I tried bridging — where you have the dog crawl under something in pursuit of a lure — and the old-fashioned leash pressure method I’d learned in Scout’s obedience class 24 years ago. None of it worked (although I inadvertently taught Marley a cute Stupid Pet Trick in the process), so I gave up and tried freeshaping.

Freeshaping is where you sit and watch your dog until she randomly does whatever it is that you want her to do. At that point, you mark and reward, then wait for her to do it again. This approach is popular with the force-free crowd, and it’s a good workaround for dogs who don’t respond to lures or leash pressure, but it is S-L-O-W.

That’s OK. We’ll get there. I sat in the bathroom with Marley for an hour and rewarded her for lying down a couple dozen times. The last few reps, I said the word “down” just as her elbows hit the floor, so hopefully she’ll start to associate the word with the action that earns her the reward.

I’ll keep you posted.