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How To Teach A Large Dog To Lie Down

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Teaching a Large Dog “Down”

Teach a Dog to Lie Down
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Teaching a large dog to lie down on cue can be challenging, especially during the early stages. If a large dog becomes easily excited, teaching him this behavior can really test someone’s abilities and patience. Check out two different ways to teach a large dog to lie down without putting your hands on your dog.

2 Ways to Teach a Large Dog to Lie Down

You should teach a large dog how to lie down first before adding a verbal or visual cue. It’s important to remain completely quiet when teaching this behavior, as chitter-chatter can slow down the learning process. As a general rule, it’s best to silently teach and reward the behavior. Once a dog readily offers the behavior, then it’s time to add a cue.

What You’ll Need

You’ll need lots of chunk-sized high value treats the size of a nickel as well as a clicker (or verbal marker, such as “yes”). Do not use your hands to teach a large dog “down.” Pushing or pulling teaches your dog nothing—it’s an outdated process anyway. Using hands or hand pressure will eventually make that a cue to your dog that’s impossible to fade. Plus, it’s hard to ask a dog to lie down from across a room if your cue is hand pressure.

Option 1: Using a Food Lure

With treats in a bowl nearby, grab a large treat lure and place it right on the tip of your dog’s nose. If he tries to bite at the treat, hold it in your closed hand with a bit peeking out (like holding a piece of chalk when writing on a blackboard). Think of the food lure like a magnet; as you move the treat around, your dog’s nose will follow.

Lower the Front Half

Have your large dog either sit or stand. Place the treat lure on your dog’s nose and slowly lower your hand straight down to the ground. If you move too fast, your dog will fall off the lure, meaning his nose is no longer on the lure.

Try again, and lower the treat down slowly and wait for your dog’s head to touch the ground. The moment your dog lowers his front half down, click or say “yes” and give him the treat lure. Practice 3-4 more times, and end the session for 5-10 minutes.

Lower the Bottom Half

At this point, your dog is in a praying position. He will readily lower his front half to the ground while following a treat. Now, it’s time to teach his bottom half to follow. Grab a large treat lure, lower it straight down to the ground and wait for your dog to lower his bottom half.

As soon as he crouches down where his bottom lowers down some, click and give him the treat. If your dog pops back up into a sit or stand position, it’s no big deal. Just place the food lure on his nose and try again. Continue practicing, so he gets lower and lower to the ground. Practice 4-5 more times, then end the session for 5-10 minutes.

Get Elbows Down

Grab a treat and lure your dog’s nose to the ground. Wait for your dog to lie completely down (elbows touching the ground). The moment his elbows touch the ground, click and give him the treat lure. Continue practicing and only reward complete “downs.” Remember, no visual or verbal cue has been added yet. If your dog remains lying down (smart dog!), reset him by tossing the treat about four feet away from him, so he must get up to eat the treat.

Option 2: Capturing the Behavior

For easily excited dogs, capturing a “down” behavior is much easier than luring with treat rewards. Grab pea-sized treats, a clicker (or use a verbal marker, such as “yes”) and your dog, then head to the bathroom. If your dog is hesitant to enter the bathroom, toss a few treats to convince him it’s not bath time. Once inside, close the door and have a seat (you can multitask during this practice session 🙂 ).

Just sit and wait. Your dog will eventually lie down. The moment his elbows touch the ground, click or say “yes,” and toss his treat about six feet away from his front legs. You should toss it far enough, so he must stand up to get the treat. Now, wait for him to lie down again and repeat. Your dog will immediately lie back down and look at you for a treat. Bingo! If this happens, immediately click and reward!

Practice Makes Perfect

Continue practicing the “down” behavior for 1 minute 2-3 times per day. If you captured the behavior, wait for your dog to lie down and click/reward immediately. Once a dog training session is over, put all unused treats in the refrigerator for your next session. Put your clicker in a drawer too. This signals to your dog that the training session is over.

If your dog lies down on his own after a session has ended, you can reward with praise or ignore. This will become much easier once your dog learns the “down” cue.

The Next Step

Once your dog will readily offer or lure in a “down” behavior, it’s time to add a verbal or visual cue. Watch the video below to learn how to add a cue to the “down” behavior.

WATCH: How To Teach A Large Dog To Lie Down

The 3 Most Challenging Steps Of The CGC Test

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Tips for Passing the Canine Good Citizen Test

CGC Test
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Completing and passing the AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test is difficult for both dog and pet owner. To pass the CGC test, you have to do all 10 steps completely successfully.

The three most difficult steps are Sitting Politely For Petting, Reaction To Another Dog and the dreaded Supervised Separation. To best prepare your dog and yourself for the CGC, enroll in a CGC prep course, which lasts 6-7 weeks. This will give you plenty of time to practice.

The 3 Most Challenging CGC Steps

Sitting Politely For Petting

Sitting still is challenging for some dogs, and being petted by a friendly stranger makes it even more difficult to sit still. In the beginning, use high value food rewards and ask a friend for help. Move slowly and ask your dog to sit first. Then, ask your friend to take one tiny step toward your dog, and click/treat when your dog chooses to remain sitting.

Ask your friend to turn around and slowly walk away from your dog (like resetting almost). After a few seconds, have the person repeat this exercise again (one tiny step toward the dog). It may be helpful to place a strip of tape on the floor, so your friend knows where to start again.

Over a period of 4 weeks, slowly practice one step at a time with different friends until a person is able to stand next to your dog while he or she sits politely.

The next step is to introduce petting. As a friendly stranger touches the side of your dog’s neck or chest once, click as the pat happens. When the person walks away, give your dog a treat. Continue adding one pat at a time, and vary where your dog is petted. Now, practice with different people and in different environments, such as:

Reaction To Another Dog

Most dogs get super excited when they see another dog and will pull toward him or her. To prevent this dog behavior from happening, enroll in a 4- to 6-week long group puppy training class and teach your puppy to focus on you instead of other puppies.

There are group adult dog training classes where you can practice the “look at me” cue. You can also practice during a 7-week CGC prep course. It takes a lot of practice, but teaching your dog to ignore other dogs is worth it!

Practice the “look at me” cue in various environments. Reward your dog with treats every time, then reward every other time once your dog gets really good at it. Continue weaning your dog from treats, and reward only really good performances, such as ignoring another barking dog. Remember, no treats can be used during a CGC test, so fading dog training treats completely before entering a CGC test is required.

Supervised Separation

Some dogs and pet owners ace every part of the CGC test except the Supervised Separation step. Expecting a dog to hang out with a stranger for 3 minutes is tough. Enrolling in a puppy and adult dog group class is invaluable, and will help prepare your dog and you for a CGC prep course.

During a CGC prep course, each dog will have ample time to practice supervised separation. You’ll also receive valuable tips from the instructor. Continue practicing at home by asking family members to hold your dog’s leash while you walk around the block. During vet visits, ask veterinary staff to hold your dog’s leash while you run to the bathroom. While your dog is hanging out, ask friends to play a game of “touch” for a few seconds. By pairing good things with scary things, your dog will soon learn to enjoy previously scary things.

Passing the CGC test is difficult. It takes time and lots of practice to learn polite manners. Spend extra practice time on these 3 challenging steps and complete a CGC prep course!

What Is The AKC Canine Good Citizen Test?

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AKC Canine Good Citizen Certification

Canine Good Citizen
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There are 60.2 million households in the U.S. that own a dog, according to American Pet Products Association. As the human population continues to grow, it’s only natural more and more dogs will become pets as well.

With that said, we have a few responsibilities as pet owners. One of them is ensuring we have a sturdy and protective fence to keep dogs from fence fighting and possibly getting harmed. Another responsibility is teaching our dogs polite manners. AKC’s Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test sets the standard for pet owners and dogs.

What is the Canine Good Citizen Test?

American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen test was designed to provide a standard for canine polite manners and promote responsible dog ownership. Thankfully, the CGC test is open to all dogs regardless of breed. However, dogs must be up-to-date on all vaccinations, including rabies.

The CGC test involves 10 steps. A CGC evaluator sets up the course, observes and assesses a pet owner and her dog’s training skills within a myriad of everyday distractions.

Dogs and pet owners must pass all 10 steps to earn the CGC certificate, and treats cannot be used during the exam. Dogs should wear a flat buckle collar, martingale collar or body harness, and must be leashed at all times.

Before a CGC test is completed, a pet owner must sign AKC’s CGC Responsible Dog Ownership Pledge. This pledge verifies a pet owner will be responsible by providing her dog proper veterinary care, picking up after her dog and training her dog.

10-Step Canine Good Citizen Test

Accepting a Friendly Stranger

Tested dog allows a stranger to approach and chat with handler for a few minutes, then turns around and leaves.

Sitting Politely for Petting

Dog allows a friendly stranger to pet him or her while out for a walk with pet owners. Dog should not jump up on stranger.

Appearance & Grooming

Friendly stranger is able to touch the dog’s front paws and ears and brush the dog’s body.

Out for a Walk (Walking on a Loose Leash)

During an informal walk, dog is able to walk on a loose leash. Remember, a loose leash (no pulling) is considered polite leash manners. 🙂

Walking Through a Crowd

Dog is able to walk happily through a crowd (three or more people) while remaining well behaved. Dog should not jump up on people.

Sit & Down on Cue Plus Stay Behavior

Pet owner asks the dog to “sit” and “down” on cue. Both behaviors should be performed separately. Using a 20-foot line, pet owner asks the dog to stay in either a sit or down position until evaluator instructs pet owner to release her dog.

Coming When Called

Pet owner walks 10 feet away from her dog while the dog wears a 20-foot leash, then calls the dog to her.

Reaction to Another Dog

Leashed test dog is able to walk near another leashed dog without barking, growling or pulling toward the other dog. Both handlers will stop, shake hands and chat for a few seconds, then walk away in opposite directions.

Reaction to a Distraction

Test dog should ignore or show slight interest in a distraction within his or her environment. Distractions can be many things, including an evaluator walking near the test dog with crutches, a cane, a walker or a baby stroller, or an evaluator dropping a phone book or pushing a shopping cart nearby.

Supervised Separation

Test dog is left with the evaluator for 3 minutes while pet owner is completely out of sight.

Upon successful completion, the tested dog earns the title of “CGC” after his or her name. If a team fails their CGC test, they may take it again.

Benefits of the Canine Good Citizen Title

With breed-specific legislation and strict homeowner restrictions, it’s important to achieve proof of your dog’s good behavior. In fact, some homeowner insurances offer discounts for dogs that have passed the CGC test.

Preparing for the CGC Test

The CGC test is tough. Pet owners and dogs should attend puppy and adult dog group classes first. It’s also highly advisable to complete a 7-week CGC prep course too. Most CGC prep group classes offer a CGC test upon graduation, which is very convenient. Don’t forget to practice each CGC step in different environments, such as a neighborhood, park or pet store.

How To Fade Dog Training Treats

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Randomly Rewarding Training Treats

Fade Food Lures
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Dog training treats are extremely useful when teaching your dog new behaviors. Once your dog has practiced a specific behavior in a myriad of situations with various distractions, it’s time to start fading treats. But not so fast! There’s a technique to fading dog treats! 🙂

Fading Dog Training Treats and Gambling

Randomly rewarding your dog’s behavior works. People are rewarded randomly every day at casinos. Gamblers learn to continue playing the game in hopes of a large payout even after long sessions without winning. It’s so effective that gambling can become addicting. Another example of a variable reward system is the lottery. Despite the 1 billion to 1 odds of winning the lottery, people still shell out their hard-earned money because the payout is extremely valuable to them.

How to Fade Dog Training Treats

Before fading a cue, make sure your dog completely understands how to perform a behavior first. If working on a “down” cue, the dog should respond quickly (within 1 second) to a cue (verbal or hand signal). You should also have your dog practice the “down” cue in your house, in the backyard, during walks and at a park.

Once your dog responds to the cue 90% of the time (lays down when given a “down” cue), it’s time to fade training treats.

When fading dog training treats, you’re rewarding your dog fewer times. You reward your dog only for the best of the best attempts. For example, you should only reward your dog for fast response time (latency) to a cue.

This variable schedule of reinforcement coupled with high value pea-sized treats fine-tunes your dog’s response to cues and his behavior while fading the use of training treats.

Don’t Fade Too Fast

Sometimes, pet owners become too picky about rewarding behaviors and decrease food rewards too quickly. Usually, this results in a confused and frustrated dog that gives up. In addition, the behavior usually falls apart, meaning a dog stops responding to a cue or offers a different behavior instead.

If this happens, take a few steps back and reward every successful attempt for several days. Then, slowly fade treats by rewarding 4 out of 5 attempts for a few days and then 3 out of 5 attempts and so forth. Then, it’s time to reward the fastest response after a cue or desired behaviors around distractions.

Don’t Completely Toss Out Training Treats

Remember, to maintain a behavior, there must be a payout (hence gambling)! When a dog responses to a cue around a tough distraction, give your dog lots of treats. If a dog comes when called while watching a squirrel run across the backyard, make treats rain from the sky. Also, use dog treats to jump-start an old behavior and teach new ones.

Dog training treats are a valuable part of the learning process for dogs, so fade only when appropriate. 

Does Permission-Based Dog Training Work?

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A Look Into Permission-Based Dog Training

Permission-Based Dog Training
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While researching scientific data to support another article, somehow I bumped into a dog trainer claiming that permission-based dog training works. As a professional dog trainer, I base my dog training methods on scientific research, which promotes force-free training methods.

Do know, I’ve been around the dog training block for two decades, and I’ve seen dog training fads and concepts come and go. In other words, I certainly have an opinion on this type of dog training. 🙂 Let’s explore the concept of permission-based dog training together.

What is Permission-Based Dog Training?

Permission-based dog training is marketing verbiage for promoting dominance-based dog training. Training a dog based on dominance involves verbal and physical corrections that promote permissive dog behavior. In a nutshell, a dog must ask for permission to eat, walk through a door, go outside, take a treat, bark, climb onto furniture or even urinate. That sounds like ego dog training to me.

Permission basically means a dog must be verbally released and perform a behavior (e.g. sit) or look at the pet owner before doing anything. This concept takes self-control exercises to an entirely different level. It creates dependence on humans. Teaching dogs self-control is important, but adding a layer of strong human dependence is wrong.

Does Permission-Based Dog Training Work?

No, permission-based dog training doesn’t work. Teaching dogs to rely on humans for “important” decisions molds a living being into a robot. Don’t get me wrong, dogs should learn polite manners, but training a dog to focus on his or her pet owner only is overkill.

Dogs are completely capable of learning how to behave politely in situations, and don’t need pet owners telling them what to do next. Teach a dog how to react, and then reinforce it when he or she chooses to respond politely. This is learning.

Take this example. A pet owner has a human aggressive dog. Permission-based dog training would entail the pet owner teaching his dog an “ignore” cue, which would signal to the dog to stop growling, barking or lunging at a person.

While it’s empowering to “call off a dog,” teaching this cue won’t benefit the dog. A better solution would be to teach the dog to ignore humans regardless of whoever is standing by. Even better would be to teach a dog that humans make treats appear and then the dog learns that good things happen around humans. (If you’re thinking this is bribery, it’s not. It’s counter conditioning and based on scientific data.)

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Teaching human dependence is a disservice to dogs. [/perfectpullquote]

Does It Teach Self-Control?

Permission-based dog training probably started off with self-control exercises in mind, but then took a slight detour. Dogs (and humans) must learn self-control; they should learn how to politely behave within their environment.

Teaching a dog to rely on humans for permission or answers is when teaching dogs self-control took a detour. Dogs are fully able to make good choices, especially when they’re rewarded for them. Teaching human dependence is a disservice to dogs. Instead, train your dog how to react politely regardless of the situation. In human terms, it’s like teaching a teenager to say no to drugs in all situations. Empower your dog to make good decisions in all situations and not just when you’re present.

Training a dog how to react politely in a situation, without human reliance, is powerful. 

Dog Training Nation is a dog training blog for pet owners and dog lovers. We cover a range of topics from puppy socialization tips to dog aggression to dog health. It is our hope you share our content to make the world a better place for dogs.

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