As training progresses the dog will learn to switch from a frenzy of leaping and barking in one instant to a tightly coiled and energized sit in the next. The animal will begin gaining the ability to hold its energy in check, guiding it into the behaviors its handler indicates in order to obtain the object of its desire—the ball in its master’s hand.
However, the dog’s excitement will interfere with precision. It will frequently make errors, such as jumping at the ball after the command has been given instead of sitting immediately, or breaking the sit on those occasions when it is carried away by its enthusiasm.
We clean up these errors and polish the sit and the stay by pairing compulsion with the ball. The handler uses a leash in one hand to correct the dog into a quick, clean sit and then make it stay perfectly in place. At the same time, he shows the dog the ball with the other hand in order to preoccupy it so that it is not upset or inhibited by the corrections. As soon as he has what he wants from the animal, the handler releases it with an “OK!” while simultaneously dropping the leash and throwing the ball for the dog.
GOAL 3: The dog will down on command.
Along with the recall, the down is one of the most important commands in obedience. Through the course of training, the down takes on a very powerful character. It is the command we use as the last resort to control the animal. If it wants to fight another dog, we down it. If it refuses to let one of our guests into the house, we down it. If the dog habitually rebites after the out, we teach it to release the sleeve and then automatically lie down at the agitator’s feet.
Although it is to become a very compelling command, we must introduce the down inducively, rather than with force.
Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal
1. Downing for food
2. Downing for the ball
3. Pairing compulsion with the ball
In the beginning, we always down the dog from a sit, never from a standing position. Once the dog is sitting, the handler does not feed it but instead encloses a few tidbits in his hand so that the animal cannot take the food but only smell it, and then places his hand on the end of the dog’s nose to call its attention to it. A hungry dog will “glue” itself to the hand, snuffling and licking at the food. The handler then lowers his hand very slowly to a spot on the ground about six inches in front of the dog’s forefeet. The animal will follow with its head and, in the effort to get the food, crouch so that its elbows touch the ground. If it stands instead, the handler merely lifts his hand up high so that the dog sits again, and then he tries again to get the animal to lie down by lowering his hand to the ground. When, eventually, the dog downs, the handler feeds it several pieces of food in a row and then releases it with the “OK!” command.
In order to get a stay the handler, rather than trying to stand up, which will almost certainly attract the dog up out of its down, instead remains kneeling. He downs the animal and feeds it one piece of food and then, with the command “Stay!” he very quickly shifts his hand and the food it contains away from the dog. Keeping the hand near the ground, he holds it at arm’s length out in front of the dog in order to provide a focal point and keep the animal still. He pauses for one instant and then, before the dog breaks the down and moves toward the food, he quickly shifts his hand back to the animal’s head and feeds it.
The dog will soon learn that the down, like the sit, must be held until its handler releases it.
Now we are ready to add the down to our play sessions on the field. In the midst of retrieving, the handler occasionally asks the dog to first sit and then lie down in order to get the ball. The animal will initially be reluctant to drop when it is so excited, but it will soon learn that the faster it hits the ground the quicker its handler will throw the ball.
The handler can then begin shuttling the dog from sit to down and back to sit again, and also downing it from a standing position without first sitting it.
Just as with the sit, after a while the handler begins to insist on near-perfect work, so that the dog downs on precisely the spot where it heard the command and in exactly the same orientation, so that there is no delay before it lies down and no skewing of its body as it does so.
The handler can experiment with various forms of compulsion in order to bring this about. A leash correction down at the ground and back toward the dog’s rear end can work well; with some dogs a quick slap on the skull between the ears is effective. However, the handler should absolutely avoid trying to push, crush or wrestle the dog to the ground because, unless this is done with overwhelming force, it just breeds resistance.
As always, when the dog does as we require, the handler releases it with “OK!” and throws the ball for it.
GOAL 4: The dog will hold the long down.
So far, we have worked the down as a spirit exercise. The handler used the ball to teach the dog to lie down as dynamically as possible, and to remain energized in the down, like a coiled spring.
Now, however, we have the long down to worry about. During the dog’s obedience performance it will be required to lie down on a spot indicated by the judge and remain there for approximately ten minutes, despite the presence of another dog-handler team working the field, and despite two gunshots. Rather than aroused, for the long down we need the dog calm and rock-steady.
Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal
1. Forcing the stay
2. Habituating the dog to gunshots
3. Combining gunshots with the down stay
We begin to work seriously on the down stay only after the dog lies down quickly and eagerly on command. Teaching the down stay involves physical punishment. We will be obliged to make use of compulsion in order to make the “Stay!” command a strong and vivid one for the dog.
We begin by concentrating on the “break” itself, the act of rising from the down without permission. By standing near the dog on the correction leash the handler can punish the animal as soon as it stirs with a quick jerk on the leash and a “No!”—making crystal clear to it that it must not move from the down.
We proof the stay by putting the dog down in very distracting or stimulating circumstances (among a group of other dogs running free, for example). The handler remains near the dog and watches it closely, ready to correct it in the act of getting up.
Sooner or later the handler will have to walk away from his dog and out of sight. With the dog all alone on the field like this and off leash, the context of the exercise will be completely different. Provided with some enticing distraction, like a ball thrown for another dog, the animal will be sure to break the stay at least once. Of course, when it does, it is impossible to catch it in the act. We will instead be forced to punish it after the fact.
The handler does so calmly and quietly. He does not scream with anger and run at the dog to take vengeance upon it. This is neither necessary nor advantageous. By charging at the animal we risk frightening it and making it shy away from us. Above all, we risk teaching it to run away in order to avoid correction. If the dog learns to wait until its handler leaves it and then breaks the down stay and runs about the field, avoiding anyone who might catch and correct it, then we will have created a serious training problem for ourselves.