In the first part of this natural dog training lesson, we learned how to get your dog into a high state of drive and then, using a small platform to define their space, elicit a “sit” using your dog’s natural response to your body language.  You are teaching your dog the feeling of “sit” when energized for a purpose: when you’re out in the world in “real-life” situations, you want your dog to respond to you ESPECIALLY when they’re charged up by whatever’s happening in their environment.  If you haven’t done obedience work with your dog at high energy levels, then your dog will have trouble responding to you when the intensity of the world goes up a few notches.  Once you’re fluent with part one of the exercise, you’ll be ready to move onto part two, which is teaching your dog how to lie down on the box at a high energy level.  It’s also worth mentioning that all of these exercises can be done with very little (or no) vocal encouragement from you.  While I’m going to describe how you might use your voice to your benefit, I suggest that you always start ANY of these exercises by focusing on how your actions and body language influence your dog’s behavior.  After you’ve got a feeling yourself for how your dog is responding to your movement and physical cues, then you can add the vocal piece. 

Elicit the down response

Once you and your dog get the hang of the first lesson, you will be able to lead your dog up onto the box, and with a simple “whisk away” of your food hand, your dog will sit expectantly.  At this point you should have noticed your dog’s sensitivity to the edge of the box.  If you hadn’t been using a box, your dog might have simply followed your whisk-away hand.  With your dog on the box, the hesitation created at the edge moves your dog from “hunting-chase” mode into “hunting-wait” mode, and sitting is the natural response.  Now you’re going to use a combination of your hand position and this “hunting-wait” mode to get your dog into a “Down”.

1. Push with your dog to get the motor revving.  You are engaging your dog’s prey instinct to put them into a state of high drive.
2. Lead your dog onto the box and into a “sit”.  Use the techniques you learned in lesson one to get your dog into a sit in a state of drive.
3. Feed the position.  Give your dog some food to maintain the sit.
4. IMPORTANT STEP – Tempt your dog with some food, and do the “whisk away”.  Only this time, whisk away in a downward direction (i.e. towards the ground in front of your dog).  You’ll probably need to crouch down in order to do this correctly, so bend those knees!  You are using your body position and your dog’s “hunting-wait” response to elicit a down.

At this point, one of three things will probably happen.  Here’s what might happen, and what you should do:

1. Your dog lies down immediately.  ZING YOUR DOG PRONTO!  Then feed the down position.  Keep feeding the position until you are ready for your dog to get up.  At that point (when you’re ready to end the down), give your dog a “Ready…Sparky!” and back away from the box to do some pushing with them (off the box).  Repeat the cycle.
2. Your dog jumps off the box.  You treat this the same way that you did in part one of this exercise.  Lead your dog back up onto the box and into a sit.  If you can be quick with your food hand (you should be by now!), zing your dog upon getting on the box, whiskaway/zing for the sit, and then try using the whiskaway/zing again (combined with your hand position and direction) to get the dog into a down position.  You might need to go through this several times before your dog gets the idea of what they’re supposed to do.  That’s fine.  Just be patient, and keep working it.
3. Your dog doesn’t know quite what to do and looks at you confusedly.  If this happens, then you ever-so-subtly can place your left hand (I’m assuming that you’re feeding with your right hand) on your dog’s back, between the shoulder blades, and apply an ever-so-slight amount of downward pressure to help guide your dog into the down position.  When your dog goes down, zing immediately and feed the position.  If your dog resists, you can try increasing the pressure a little – but that might make your dog jump off the box (see #2 for how to respond).

To maintain the down (aka what to do if your dog wants to pop right back up again):

If you’re dog is really revving, then you might find yourself with a dog who wants to get right back up after lying down.  You need to start creating some solidity in the down position.  Mainly, you will do this by “feeding the position”  – and what is probably happening is that you yourself are getting up and your dog is responding to your body position.  So feed your dog’s position while you maintain your own crouched position.  You want to feed rapidly enough so that there isn’t time between zings (i.e. when you’re reaching into your food pouch) for your dog to get up.  As your dog settles into the position, you can space out your zings.  Ever so slowly (and zinging all the while), work to get your body back into an upright position.

Another important component of stabilizing the down is to begin massaging your dog with your left hand as you zing with your right (feeding the position).  As your dog relaxes, you can even stop feeding and switch entirely to a relaxing touch to help anchor your dog into position.  You’ll notice your dog developing a rootedness in the spot the more that they relax.

One last option for you to try, once your dog seems relatively rooted in position, is to tug slowly and steadily on their leash, as if you were trying to pull your dog off the box.  Don’t pull so hard that you actually pull your dog off!  Pull gradually, and notice that your dog resists your effort and “pulls” back, in order to stay on the box (and in the down position).  Once your dog resists, relax the tension on the leash and feed the position some more.

You will detect that THIS down is a different kind of down.  Your dog will be energized and extremely focused on you.  There will be an intensity to the down, but your dog will be quite still – so if you notice things like tail wagging or a concerned facial expression (note ear position especially) – that is a sign that you need to help your dog relax more in this position.  While your dog knows how to lie down when energized (that is, after all, why they’re doing it right now), you are teaching your dog how to lie down when energized around YOU.  Once your dog is reliably lying down, you can add a vocal “Down!” – but make sure you say it just as your dog is lying down.  Eventually your dog will learn something like “oh – this word “Down” means that I should feel the way I feel right now, which is to be hitting the dirt in an energized state with a focused direct alertness about me”.  Something like that.

Once your dog gets the down, you’re probably going to spend most of your energy working on down, followed by the “stay”.  We’ll cover the “stay” in Part Three of this series – in the meantime, you can cycle between play training, pushing, getting on the box, sitting on the box, and lying down on the box.  Keep things fun for you and your dog by changing things up.  If you’re walking down the street with your dog and you see an empty bench, use that as an impromptu “box” to transfer some of your work to a more public (and distracting) location.  While you’re playing fetchtug with your dog, tease your dog with a toy to get them onto the box, and then use the TOY to elicit the down response.  You can throw the toy as a release for the down.  Whatever you do, just make sure that you’re developing a “pop-up free” down, on which we can build as soon as we start talking about “stay”.  Good luck and, as usual, let me know if you have any questions.

Along with addressing problem behaviors in our dogs, Natural Dog Training is great for obedience.  Natural Dog Training is designed to teach your dog how to do things like sit, lie down, stay – and come when called – all in an energized state.  Now, why is it important to connect your dog’s obedience with their emotional state?  You want your dog to respond to you the times that it matters most – when company comes over, when they see a squirrel or another dog, when you encounter a deer in the woods, when you’re walking down a busy street.  Typically, during these high energy moments, a dog is not thinking about the situation – a dog is responding to the way that the situation makes them feel.  You want your dog to know the feeling of how to be “obedient” when they’re charged up by the environment – so that, for example, staying put in your driveway (off-leash) while you run across the street to help your neighbors corral one of their 8 shelties back into their garage (this actually happened, folks) is within the realm of possibility.

Fortunately, most obedience behaviors are also HUNTING behaviors.  What this means is that if you can get your dog into hunting mode (which you now can do – see the learn the basics section if you need more information), then you should be able to elicit the appropriate behaviors through your body language alone.  Your dog will learn what it feels like to be obedient in an energized state, which will make actual obedience “when it counts” congruous with the way the dog feels at that moment.

Think about it like this:  Let’s say (for our purposes) that you know how to ride a bike.  In fact, you’ve been riding a bike for years now, so you’re pretty good at it.  Now, I’ve set up a bridge over a nearby gorge that I want you to ride across.  Don’t worry, the gorge is only about 100 feet deep, and only about 100 feet wide - and the bridge is really wide – about two feet (about .6 meters for the rest of the world)…with no railings!  Hey, wait…why are you running in the other direction?  I asked you to ride across that gorge! 

Get the picture?  When you teach your dog how to “sit” in the comfort of your living room, that’s great!  But if your dog doesn’t know how to sit when there’s something more emotionally compelling going on – if “sitting” just doesn’t feel right in that situation – then guess what your dog will probably do when you give the “sit” command and there’s a pack of golden retrievers headed your way?  Anything but sit, probably.

This technique will eventually lead to training “sit”, “down”, and “stay”.  For the moment, I’m going to start with “sit” and  something even more basic – “on the box!”.

You’re going to need a platform (or “box”) that can support your dog, and that is large enough for your dog to lie down on it.  I’ve built one for myself out of pine from the hardware store (pictured), which was pretty cheap and easy to do.  Alternately, if there are benches or rocks where you train, you can use those.  Just make sure that they’re not too high – 6 inches off the ground is plenty, any more than 2 feet high is potentially hazardous to your dog’s joints when jumping off.  The point of using a box is to delimit the space where your dog will be – which will make it much easier for your dog to learn what to do as you teach them.  You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Things you’ll need:

1. The aforementioned box.
2. Your dog, preferably hungry (you can feed your dog during this training session).
3. Some tasty morsels of food in a pouch.
4. A long lead – attached to your dog’s collar.
5. A place to be.

Start out by playing with your dog, either tug or fetchtug – then switch to doing some pushing.  All of this activity should take place near the box (I’m going to keep calling it “box” – but just substitute whatever you’re using in its place).  Your dog’s motor should be revving at this point, with all attention focused on you.   

Next step:  using food, encourage your dog to jump up on the box.  If you have to, hold some food right in front of your dog’s face and lead them up onto the box.  Just as your dog jumps up on the box, say “On the box!” and give an immediate food reward (all the food that’s in your hand).  At this point you can give some verbal praise as well (while you reload your food hand).  Call your dog’s name excitedly as you step away from the box, encouraging the dog to jump off the box and do some more pushing with you – at least a couple rounds of pushing.  Then encourage your dog onto the box again, saying “On the Box!” at the instant they get on the box.  Go through this cycle a few times.

Easy enough.  Now, before we move on we need to introduce a couple food techniques into the mix.  There’s the “Whisk away” and the “Zing”.  Imagine that I’m standing there in front of you with a tasty cookie.  I hold the cookie out to you, but when you reach to get it, I pull it just out of your reach with a little flick of my wrist.  That’s the “whisk away”.  As soon as your hand starts moving away from me, back into position at your side, I put the cookie right up to your mouth, so you can take it right from my hand.  That’s the “zing”.  Get it?  You’re going to be holding food out close to your dog’s mouth and enticing your dog, but if your dog makes a move for the food you do the “whisk away”.  When your dog settles back you immediately “Zing!”.  OK.

One more food technique.  I call it “feeding the position”.  It basically means that you just keep giving your dog food when you want your dog to stay put.  You need to give the food rapidly enough that your dog doesn’t move when you go for more food in your pouch.  As an experiment to teach yourself this technique, encourage your dog “on the box”, and then feed your dog on the box – you can think of it as “rewarding” the fact that they’re on the box.  What you’re actually doing is keeping your dog’s prey drive (which you aroused with the tug/fetchtug/pushing) engaged with the food, all the while adding energy to their position on the box. 

Back to what we were doing.  Use food to encourage your dog “on the box” (saying the command as they get on the box).  This time, instead of calling your dog off the box, use the food to bring your dog right to the edge of the box.  Keep your dog near the edge of the box for the moment, and then slowly entice your dog, as if you’re trying to get them off the box, with the food.  Your dog will be slightly reluctant to get off the box – it could be a hesitation, nothing more.  There are two things that could happen:

1. If your dog SETTLES back onto the box instead of jumping off, immediately ZING.  The Zing needs to happen without hesitation.  At this point, you can feed the position of your dog being on the box. 
2. If your dog jumps off the box…give a quick “Aye!” followed by an urgent “quick, quick, on the box!” using food to get your dog back onto the box.  Once on the box, feed the position.

Another brief aside – I don’t use the word “No!” anymore with my dog.  Instead I use the word “Aye!”, which I picked up when I was apprenticing with Kevin Behan.  I think he actually uses some German word that sounds like “Aye”, but “Aye!” works for me.  I stopped using “No!” because I personally felt like there was too much “meaning” – for me – around the word, when in reality “No” or “Aye” or whatever you choose to say is really just an interruption of the flow of the moment, which is what stops your dogs actions.  I’ll probably expound upon this in a later post – suffice to say that I use “Aye!” as a replacement for the “verbal shock” of “No!”

Once your dog is back on the box, try what you were just doing again.  Use the food to entice them to the edge and almost off the box.  If your dog lunges for the food in your hand, Whisk Away the food quickly – not too far, just far enough to be out of your dog’s reach.  When you do this, notice what happens with your dog.  Most likely, your dog will pull back (onto the box) – and if that happens, then Zing immediately.  If your dog STILL jumps off the box, just repeat what you did before – “Aye!” followed by “quick, quick, on the box” – using the food to get your dog on the box.

Your dog has an internal efficiency mechanism at work.  It won’t take long for them to get the feeling that the food comes much more easily when they stay on the box – especially because jumping off the box, then on again, takes so much effort.

At some point your dog WILL become more sensitive to the edge of the box.  At this point, you can play with the edge, using the Whisk Away to get them back into position, and the Zing to reward them immediately when they settle back onto the box.  The “settling” could be as subtle as their head moving back away from your food hand, or as obvious as them sitting there in expectation – Zing them no matter how subtle, since the “head moving away from your food hand” will ultimately become “sitting in expectation”.

Now you should be able to do a few WhiskAway/Zing combinations, feeding their position when they’re on the box, followed by backing away from the box and calling their name (so that they WILL jump off the box), and some pushing on ground level.  Excellent!  Here are some nuances for you to play with:

1. If your dog hasn’t started sitting automatically yet on the box, try playing with your hand position as you tempt them at the edge of the box.  Hold your food hand a little bit higher above their head, which should encourage your dog back onto the haunches and into a sit.  If your dog isn’t too sensitive, you could try giving a (VERY) gentle push on their lower back, just before their tail, with your non-food hand (if they jump off the box, resist, or just scoot to get away from your hand, then forget the gentle push on the rump part).  You should be able to get to the point where your dog begins sitting as a response to the food being Whisked Away at the edge of the box.  After all, “sitting” is what dogs naturally do when they’re waiting for something to happen on the hunt.  Once THAT (dog sits as food is whisked away) happens reliably, start saying “Sit” AS your dog sits.  You are not commanding your dog to sit.  You are simply giving a label to what your dog is already doing.  Once your dog is sitting – FEED THE POSITION.  Congratulations – you’ve taught your dog to sit while energized!
2. Ultimately we are going to be working on a long down-stay.  Since we haven’t done the “down” yet, we can work on a simple, less intense “stay” while your dog is in the sitting position on the box.  Once your dog is sitting, hold your non-food hand palm out, fingers pointed to the sky, facing your dog.  You’re holding your hand out as if to stay “stop right there!”  Back away very slowly – not too far at first, just a few steps.  Say “Ready…”  and then drop your hand, call your dog’s name so that they jump off the box, and do some pushing as a reward for their coming to you.  You can back away slightly further next time, and you can say “Stay” (firmly) as you do.

Sitting is a relatively unstable position (compared to “down”).  So don’t try to go too far away.  Also, if you see that your dog is going to jump off the box and come for you, immediately call their name as if you MEANT for them to come to you, and when they get to you do some pushing.  Many people would instead be inclined to focus on the “stay” part with some sort of reprimand for having left position – but not you!  You are going to reinforce what’s right about what they just did, which was to come running at you for a push.  You should make a mental note of how far away you were when that happened, or for how long you were asking them to stay in position – because you were either too far away or you made them wait too long.  Next time be more gradual – don’t try to go so far (or so long) so soon.  Gradual, gradual, gradual.

You’ll know that you’ve successfully mastered this lesson with your dog when your dog will go “on the box”, will immediately sit when the food is whisked away, and will stay in position when you back away with your hand raised in a “stay right there” manner.  The voice commands will come with time – it’s the behavior and the feelings associated with the behavior that you care about.  So don’t obsess about what you’re saying – focus on what you’re doing, on reading the subtle cues of your dog’s behavior, Zinging immediately when they do what you want, feeding the position when they’re in the right position, and Whisking Away when they lunge for the food before you’re ready to give it to them.  I realize that all of this will be more clear once I’ve got some video to support it – so in the meantime, feel free to ask any questions.  For a description of a similar exercise to round out your knowledge of how to Zing and WhiskAway, see this great article written by Lee Charles Kelley on his technique called “Trick-or-Treat”.  He covers a bit more ground in one article, but the general gyst is the same.  We will be using the box as we move on to “down” and a more rock-solid “stay” – so “stay” tuned!