To teach our dog to lie down, we must first have taught him to sit, since it is a fundamental step to perform this exercise.
We will give our dog the order to sit and when he has sat, we will take a treat with our hand and put it near his mouth but without him being able to pick it up. Without him getting up, we will remove the prize so that he leans forward, at the same time we will lower it, so that he also leans down. With the other hand we will very, very gently give him a few small touches on his front legs, so that he stretches them forward and lies down K9 training Houston.
While he is lying down we will give him the order to lie down, a single command: “Lie down” or “Lie down” will be enough. When he has lain down we will give him the prize and congratulate him for having done his job well. Before repeating the exercise we must ask him to stand up completely and start from the beginning, give him the order to sit down and repeat the process.
We will repeat the exercise as many times and weeks as necessary, until he lies down alone with the corresponding command “Lie down.” When he does it correctly, we will do the same process that we did with the order to sit, we will progressively move away without letting him get up until we tell him to.
Correctly performing this exercise will also take us several weeks, we must be patient and constant. We should never pressure our dog or stress him, we should not force him to do what he does not want to do. If one day he decides that he does not want to learn, it is best to continue the training another day.