I searched all the key words I could, but I couldn't find anything pertaining to what I'm looking for; so if anybody can link me a thread if it already exists that would be wonderful!!

So I have been clicker training Sheba and she just CAN NOT do it!! She of course mastered sit right away. Down though is a whole new ball game. I have tried treating her every time she leans down just a little bit farther. She will get to the point where she reaches all the way to the ground, but she won't put her paws out. I will move it very slowly forward and she just turns her head back and forth wondering what she is supposed to do. I really don't want to have to put her paws out for her, because that's not really learning. Any advice on what I can do to help her learn?

She gets frustrated very easily, so we have to keep our sessions short.

What I did with Yuki (make sure you have room behind you to back up) is first telling her to sit. Then I took my hand and lowered it semi-slowly from the air to the ground while saying 'down', with a treat visible in my hand. At first she would just go from the treat, without laying down, so I slowly inch the treat away from her. If she stood up I made her sit again, and lowered the treat to the ground, and slowly inched it away again. Eventually she laid down Now when I say down she literally throws herself down like the weight of the world is on her back, but shes a drama queen

That is how I originally started to train Sheba, because that's how everyone of my other dogs have learned down. But, like I said, once I start to move the treat in front of her, she looks at the treat like its a ghost or something. I stopped saying down because I felt like she was learning that just leaning down for a treat was down. So what I have started doing is saying "down" in the beginning, and just saying good girl every time she goes a little bit lower. She has done an actually down twice I think, and those few times she nailed it, I gave her the most crazy praise and loving I ever have. I thought it would work, but it didn't :/.

Perhaps try putting the treat on the ground, and then covering it up with your hand. Then have her try to get the treat, she will probably try and dig for it, and then she may try to lay down to get closer to getting it? Then once shes down uncover your hand? Just trying to think of suggestions

I know it's so hard to think of another way to try it!! I will try that tomorrow! Every single book I have read all said the same thing over and over again..not very helpful!

Well I remember Cloud was REALLY hard to train 'shake'. I tried for two weeks holding out my hand, gently brushing his paw, even grabbing his paw. Nothing worked. Then one day at petsmart I was looking at toys and the lady came over (he was 5 months old then, cute little puppy) and asked if I minded if he had a treat. I said sure and watched as she held the treat in her hand, and had him try to get the treat until he put his paw in her hand to try and 'dig' the treat out. She had him shaking normally in 10 minutes. I was amazed xD So I thought maybe the same could work for down too. If its on the floor maybe she'll try to get closer to the floor to try and use her muzzle to dig the treat out. Worth a shot!

I'm sure she lies down on her own, yes? Why not click+treat when she does it on her own? She'll eventually put it together that that is what you want and you don't have to worry about the added stress of her getting frustrated.

Hm. Never thought of that either!

I haven't been clicking and treating while she is lowering her head and neck area down, because it's not what I want. I am praising her and giving her treats the lower she goes, but I have not clicked. Should I be clicking as well? I feel like if I were to click, she would get confused on what I want, and that's so not what I want.

I think what she meant is when Sheba is laying down normally. Perhaps she goes into the living room and you notice her lay down. So you immediately click the clicker, say down? and go over and treat her and praise her. That's my understanding, but I don't do clicker training.

The "click" is supposed to be the marker. Like - if you did traditional lure training when the dog finally did what you wanted it to do you would go "Good girl!". The click is supposed to represent that. When you "load" the clicker (teaching the dog what the clicker means) you teach the dog that the click means it's doing something right so it gets the click + treat.

When I work with Bella I click/treat everything she does that is heading towards my ultimate goal of what I want her to do. It makes her really think about what's going on and what to do next. When I see that she knows that current step I start witholding clicks and treats until she does something new that works towards the ultimate goal - once she takes that next step I start clicking and treating again.

Mobezilla wrote:

I think what she meant is when Sheba is laying down normally. Perhaps she goes into the living room and you notice her lay down. So you immediately click the clicker, say down? and go over and treat her and praise her. That's my understanding, but I don't do clicker training.

That's exactly it! Except you don't want to introduce the cue word until she *knows* what you want. You would just be clicking and treating until she is offering the behavior willingly to you (ex. when she comes to you and lays in front you - she's offering you the behavior because she wants the click+treat - then you would start telling her "down")

Clicker training is the dog learning and doing things on his/her own. You are "shaping" the behaviors the dog does naturally.

If you're having problems "teaching" the act - just start treating her for doing it naturally on her own. It'll require you to basically at all times have that clicker and treats - but that is one of the joys of clicker training.

There is no much information about clicker training out there, it's hard to decipher what you really are and aren't supposed to do! So thank you for clarifying that for me! I didn't clicker train with Kennedy, but Sheba did a lot better with clicker then just regular treat training, so I tried to do as much research as I could, but found a lot of conflicting articles about it. So THANK YOU!

Loading the clicker was probably the most fun I have ever had training, honestly. It doesn't even seem like training at the time!

I honestly never thought of treating natural "downs". I have always treated for natural behaviors like not jumping on people when they come to great us and stuff like that..but NEVER with down! Thank you soooo much!

Sorry, I've been looking into clicker training and just wondering, what does 'loading the clicker' mean?

You're very welcome .

Bella responds excellently to clicker training and LOVES it. We spend a lot of time just goofing off with the clicker because she just absolutely can't get enough of it. Honestly, training has never been so much fun.

Megan - when you "load" the clicker you are simply teaching the dog what the clicker means. It takes the place of "good girl" or "good boy" or "yes!" - takes the place of the praise part of rewarding in training. The click is shorter than anything we could come up with really and dogs respond loads better to clicking than they do to our vocal praise.

Ex. I was sitting in the living room with Bella and I had treats and the clicker. When bella was walking away from me I would click - her natural reaction is to turn, come to me and investigate. I would treat her for that. When she finally wandered away from me again or sniffed the ground or whatever - I would click again and she would come to me and would get a treat. - do something similar to that 3x a day for a couple days and do 10 reps in each session. That would be "loading" the clicker.

You're teaching the dog that reward comes with the "click" so the click is a good thing.

Clicker training is very time sensitive/oriented because the click captures the behavior at the very second the dog is doing it where as our verbal praises can take a couple seconds and the dog is already thinking/doing something else.

So basically to load the clicker means just to click it? Lol I was thinking like 'load a cannon' and like what are you putting in the clicker? O.O Thanks so much. I'm thinking of doing clicker training with Yuki, but she's already known all the tricks since she was 8 weeks old. Sit, down, high five, bow, speak, sing, etc :/ so I never had use for it xD But perhaps if something comes up I can use it ^-^

LOL! no, no!!! Loading the clicker just means to click it ! Sorry for the confusion!

I do clicker training all of the time for random stuff. 101 things to do with a box is a lot of fun (though I'll admit Bella doesn't particular care for it but I think that's because I introduced her to it when she was grumpy and tired lol).

I taught Bella to differentiate between certain items (though I had to stop doing that because my dad became ill but I plan on starting again). To tug on things to open the fridge a "go to mat" cue, it's how I reinforce drop it and bring things to me (It's really how I reinforce everything and then it's how I start working on new things)

Have you tried moving the lure around her body toward her butt while sitting?
Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmhGsDl0OWI

It took me three or four session to get Varu to lie down with a lure. I had actually lie down myself instead of kneeling infront of him. After using lure to get him into down while I was lying in front of him I was able to do it while kneeling then later while standing.

Yes. I got the least response from that type of training. She had no idea what I wanted from her and got frustrated. She is smart, but she has a very short learning window. She gets frustrated very easily, so I have to break things up into smaller steps.

I have never used that type of training when teaching down, so while I don't have a lot of experience with it, it isn't the type of training what will work for Sheba.

Mobezilla wrote:

Perhaps try putting the treat on the ground, and then covering it up with your hand. Then have her try to get the treat, she will probably try and dig for it, and then she may try to lay down to get closer to getting it? Then once shes down uncover your hand? Just trying to think of suggestions

This worked for me, Korra will go from standing to down an from seated to down now too
Definitely give it a shot.