How Can I Teach My Dog (she’s A Havanese Of 4 Months) To “down”?
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
I tried the method on the book “101 dog tricks” by Kyra Sundance and Chalcy but it doesn’t seem to work. The method that failed was holding a treat (in this case cheese) and putting it n front of her nose, then saying “down” and lowering my hand to the floor holding the treat, but she doesn’t “down”. What can I do?
Related Havanese Training & Care posts:
1. get your dog’s attention (best done after a good run so she will not be distracted easily.
2. teach her to sit. show treat slightly above her head. move the treat backwards so she has to sit to see the treat. give the treat to her. praise a lot.
3. while in the “sit” position, bring the treat down and forward so she has to lie down to continue to follow the treat. do this with one hand on her rump. soon she will associate the ‘sit, down” command as one command which leaves her in a flat position on the ground. give her the treat and praise a lot.
4. repeat this exercise no more than 7 times per training session to keep her mind on what she is doing. also, reinforce other commands at this time.
5. keep all learning sessions short and fun. use only positive reinforcement!
If by down you mean off just give it a good shove while saying off. If you man sit, put a dog treat in your palm, and show to the dog, and say sit. if it needs some help push down on its rump. Now whenever you make the same motion you did with your hand while you had the treat, the dog will will associate with good things, and will sit.
Get your leg in a ‘ v ‘ shape so your dog can only just get under then get a treat and slowly bring it under your leg as the dog follows lower your leg so she lies down it worked for me after a million and one times .but you’ve got to persevere
Good Luck
I agree with Steve. I trained my 3 month old Hav puppy to “down” doing the same thing that he described. It worked great!
Once he caught on to what he was supposed to do I quit with the under the leg thing and now he lays down on command.
Good luck with your puppy…hav’s are awesome!
I like the look of a havanese. They are so cute.