Spencer and his down.

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Sarah83
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Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:49 pm
Location: Bad Fallingbostel, Germany
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Spencer and his down.

Post by Sarah83 »

I think I posted here a while ago about how if we told Spencer "down" he got really fearful and cowered and often turned into an upside down Labrador fountain. Well I've spent quite a lot of time re-training down and possibly looking at changing the command for it once he was happy with a hand signal. Well there's been no need to change the command. He's now dropping like a stone when told to "down" but instead of being all fearful and cowering he's got bright eyes, a tail that wags a hundred miles an hour and often a grin on his face :mrgreen:

We've been doing downs for dinner, downs for a ball thrown, downs for the door being opened and downs for treats. I guess all the work I've put in on getting him to lie down on a hand signal has paid off and he now sees it as "ooh, if I lie down something good is gonna happen!" rather than a reason to be frightened. Now we just need to work on distance, duration and distraction. A dog owners work is never done is it? lol
Erica
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Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:35 pm
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Re: Spencer and his down.

Post by Erica »

Oh yay! :) Glad he's forgotten any bad associations he had with it. Great work, Sarah! :D
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
JudyN
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Re: Spencer and his down.

Post by JudyN »

Sarah83 wrote:A dog owners work is never done is it? lol
Well, not the housework, that's for sure :lol: It's lovely when you can see a real improvement in their mental state, isn't it?

I don't ask Jasper for a down that often.With those long legs of his he has to think about it. Quite often the front end will go down first and I have time to say 'And the other end' before the back end joins in. I don't think he'll ever do the 'drop like a stone' thing :lol:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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